If you’ve ever watched the cable television shows about exotic foods from other countries, you might get the impression that we Americans have rather bland taste. Some memorable examples from far away include chargrilled spiders, fruit that smells like dirty feet and cooked blowfish.
I guess a taste for anything can be acquired. Most lovers of beef wouldn’t consider the granddaddy of meat to be an acquired taste, unless it’s not cooked to their liking.
I’m a rare steak kinda guy. I like my steak to look like I might have had a chance of saving the poor steer just a few minutes earlier. If I stick my fork in it and it stops just short of saying “moo,” it’s cooked right.
I ordered a steak at a restaurant some time ago and the server asked me how I wanted it done. Before she could get the word “done” out of her mouth, I replied enthusiastically “rare!”
She said, “Pittsburgh rare?”
Ooh, yeah . . . Pittsburgh rare. “Yes, please.”
Just knock the horns off it; I’m good.
But what’s perfection to one person is disgusting to the next. I know plenty of folks who like their steak done to the consistency of a hockey puck. Good taste is definitely in the eye of the beholder.
My brother and I have a tradition when we deer hunt together. If either of us harvests a deer, we save the liver and immediately take it home to fry for dinner. I don’t really like liver and neither does he, but it’s hard to break tradition. My dogs, on the other hand, really appreciate the tradition.
I consider liver to be an exotic food. It doesn’t rise to the level of blowfish, but it’s still exotic in my book.
The heart, on the other hand, is exotic to some, but I consider it a delicacy. Dice it and fry it in butter seasoned with some garlic salt and pepper and you have something that can bring a smile to the face of even the pickiest eater. A word of caution, though, is advised. Let the picky eater sample it before revealing the origin or the surprise will be ruined.
My daughter was entertaining a school friend during deer season a couple of years ago as I was frying up some recently acquired deer heart. The pleasant aroma brought both of them from my daughter’s room to investigate.
When my daughter and her friend saw that I had just put the meat on a plate, they wanted a sample, and I obliged. In between bites, they asked what it was, and I replied truthfully, “It’s deer heart.”
My daughter’s eyes got big, but she didn’t stop chewing. Her friend swallowed and said, “That’s really weird because it tastes so good!”
My daughter got me back the next summer when she had me sample a snack she brought home. After I popped it in my mouth, she fessed up that it was a freeze-dried cricket. It didn’t surprise me, and I probably had it coming.
I have yet to sample oysters from the Rocky Mountains, although I know where I could get some free samples to fry. I’ve said that I’ll try anything once, but I just haven’t gotten there yet.
My grandfather used to enjoy pickled pig’s feet. As far as I’m concerned, pig’s feet are only good for two things. They are good for ambulating a pig and allowing an aspiring veterinarian to practice the correct placement of skin sutures.
Most of the exotic foods I’m familiar with, however, do come from the pig. Pig’s feet, puddin and scrapple are just a few. I don’t really know what goes into puddin and I’m not sure I want to know. I know what goes into scrapple; it’s everything in the pig except the squeal. But the most exotic pork product, if you can call it that, are chitlins. For those not familiar, chitlins are the pig’s intestine, boiled first, then battered and deep fried. If you’re wondering, they taste like . . . like you think they do. Somebody had to be desperate to come up with that recipe.
Which leads me to contemplate the incredible diversity of meat foods from which we have to choose in this country. Steaks, burgers, filets, chicken strips, fish, pork chops and lamb are all delicious and hard to improve upon. Even the exotic parts are coveted by some people.
Yet, there are still those trying to grow meat in a laboratory. I think meat, the way it was intended to be grown, is hard to beat. Yes, some scientist might be able to culture a clump of cells in a petri dish that resembles the flesh of an animal, but why? And more importantly, can he get them to taste better than chitlins?
(Dr. Bill Croushore is a veterinarian with White Oak Veterinary Clinic in Berlin. If you have a question for the veterinarian, send it to whiteoakvetclinic@gmail.com.)
