"liver" news and stories

Time Magazine reports, with a soupçon of punny glee, that sales of offal in Great Britain have surged as of late, likely in response to the international economic downturn. Quoth London's Liz Logan:

"Tough economic times have Britons eating their hearts out and swallowing their tongues. Not literally, of course. But offal - or "variety meats," as the food category is euphemistically called in the U.K. - is experiencing a surge in popularity, with sales up 67% over the past five years."

Thing is, even in advance of the pound sterling's plunge, the nose-to-tail herd, helmed by offal stalwarts like Fergus Henderson and River Cottage's Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, had been squealing 'bout the culinary benefits of tripe, kidneys, brains, tail, giblets and trotters. Come for the savings, stay for the savoring -- the message seems to have come home to roost.

I posted a while back about my love of grilled chicken hearts, and I'm no stranger to whisking up a batch of giblet gravy, or a neckbone ragout, but I'm hungry for your favorite takes on organ meats. Post 'em in the comments below.

[via: Time]

Thank you to Flickr user vvvanessa for uploading this drool-inducing image to the Slashfood pool.

Giblet gravy recipe after the jump.

As the ongoing recession/inflation/credit crunch drives the cost of food higher and higher, British chain Sainsbury's has begun working to minimize food wastage. Meanwhile, ever-increasing numbers of consumers are cooking from scratch in an attempt to stretch their food budgets. Clearly, thrift is back!

As you rush around in your search for cheap things to eat, it's worth remembering that, in the kitchen at least, poverty can definitely be the mother of invention. Although cheap gas, greenhouse gardening, and factory farming drove down the price of food for most of the last century, the vast majority of human history has been characterized by the desperate search for sustenance. Keeping that in mind, here's a reminder about a few of the techniques that long-gone chefs once developed to preserve the harvest, get their vitamins, and avoid throwing anything away:

Organ meats: In the days before easy canning and greenhouse gardening, it was incredibly difficult to get the necessary daily allowance of vitamins. Lacking access to fresh fruits and vegetables, medieval farmers turned to organ meats. For example, rich in iron and Vitamin A, the liver was a dietary staple for generations. Similarly, kidneys, sweetbreads, and brains are also great sources of necessary vitamins. Much later, immigrants and the lower classes continued to eat these organs, as they were healthy and relatively inexpensive.

A while, back, I wrote a post on emotionally-based food aversions -- both my own (tuna noodle casserole), and those of loved ones (scrambled eggs, mayonnaise, garlic). Little did I know this was going to open up Pandora's icebox. More than 75,000 people weighed in on our "What food hits your yuck button?" poll, and the comments thread is at the time of this writing, 1668 strong and counting. It seems that folks have just been looking for a place to spill their long-stewing food loathings, so we've counted down the top 20, weighting them for poll votes, number of mentions in comments, and level of vitriol incurred.

Want to keep the conversation flowing? See the initial post, or hurl forth in the comments below.

AOL Food: America's Most Hated Foods

The post that started it all: Guilty Displeasures

As one chef put it, "We're going to paint the town with foie gras."

Um, that might be taking it a little far, but okay.

After just over a year of the law that banned restaurants from serving foie gras, the city of Chicago has done an about-face, making the fatty liver of ducks and geese available to diners. Many parties are involved with the issue of serving foie gras in Chicago restaurants, from animal rights activists to restaurant owners to foie gras producers, and even to those interested in the political process in Chicago's city administration.

Source

Recently, German researchers fed lab mice separate "human" and "chimp" diets, and within just two weeks, were able to notice distinct psychological and genetic differences in the rodents.

There were three different diets: a raw food-only diet; meals from the researchers' local cafeteria; and a pure fast-food diet. The researchers found a huge difference in the livers of the mice with a chimp diet versus those with a human diet (I'm scared to hear about the difference in their hearts and arteries!) They found thousands of differences in the genes expressed in the mouse livers, which they think may be caused by our differences in diets.

...You got all that? Okay. The scientists also found that said genes seemed to evolve faster than other genes.

So, basically, our ancestors' adoption of meat and cooked foods may have shaped us into the carnivorous, brownie-eating, beer-guzzling beings we are today.

Source