Let Them Eat Organs! Tripe, Liver And Kidney Sales Are Booming In The UK
British people suddenly love eating liver and kidneys? Well, probably not. The global recession is causing a spike in "offal" or "variety meat" sales in the UK, says Time.
At ASDA, Britain's second largest supermarket chain and a subsidiary of Wal-Mart, offal sales were up 20% last month compared to November 2007. Sainsbury's, the country's third largest supermarket chain, is selling 48% more pig livers, 22% more chicken livers and 8% more pig kidney than it was last year. Overall, sales of offal in the U.K. are expected to reach more than $62 million this year according to industry analysts Mintel.
"It's price-driven," says Bob Cotton, CEO of the British Hospitality Association, which represents 60,000 hotels and restaurants in the U.K. "I couldn't say the British public have suddenly fallen in love with offal. That would be gilding the lily."
Then again, maybe they do like it. As my father, who was raised by British people, always says, "Cooking kidneys is easy. You just boil the piss out of them." Dad is adorable that way.
Britain's Tongue, Kidney and Brains Boom [Time via Buzzfeed]
(Photo: Hey There Killer )
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Comments:
What about oxtails, hog's ears, chitlins, and pork brains? Those are all recession-proof.
Heh, I know where that photo was taken - Western Beef on Staten Island...
There's a good reason why offal sounds like awful...
@rorschachex: Crown Heights, Brooklyn... but close... They've since redesigned the outside of my Western Beef... now it looks nice and clean... which is weird
@HeyThereKiller: Ah... sounds right, I haven't been on SI in a while (4 years of college + 1-year job rotation out of NY)
Something about eating an organ that is used to filter out waste products makes me uneasy.
What has Delia Smith gone and done now????
My old man liked head cheese (bone marrow jelly and sheep brain), liver or tripe and onions (tripe = chitlins), steak and kidney pie, and blood sausage (cow blood mixed with fat, put in casings).
It puts bile in my throat to think I was produced by someone who ate that crap regularly.
We Americans have been conditioned to not eat offal as part of a public health campaign against rising levels of gout around 1900. So now we get our gout from HFCS. Thanks, Coke.
@P_Smith: Tripe is cow stomach, right? Chitlins are pig intestines.
Not that I want to try either, but as a general rule, I consider tongue the LEAST disgusting, and then it goes downhill as it progresses through the digestive system. Waste storage adn filtering organs are dead last.
How is this different from regular British food again?
Have you been to china? Or even chinatown? Nothing goes to waste, we eat everything! And I'm damn proud.
@rtmccormick: Supposedly (in measured amounts) they're good for you.
It puts your system through its paces, given that your system is healthy enough to handle it... but of course that means you can't be eating it every damn day either.
Didn't we already see an article on SPAM this week?
MMM...brains.
Not all organs are awful - its a matter of opinion. If you grew up eating them then its pretty normal. I enjoy chicken hearts and lives. I also like beef and venison heart. My dad loves kidneys and liver.
You can not pay me enough to eat a part of the body whose primary function is to filter poison out of the bloodstream.
I fancy they will e-at their 'umble pie now.
[/Worst Brit accent since Dick Van Dyke]
ew :(
liver filters, kidneys filter urine. WHO EATS WHAT'S LEFT IN THE DRAIN??
Chitlins' -- sounds like good down-home Southern food until you realize it's fried BOWEL and you have to get all the S**T out first or you get really sick.
Lovely.
Once, I took my wife to a very fancy place for her birthday and she spent damn good money on DEER PANCREAS!
Hell, you can probably get that by the side of the road for FREE!
@Ninja007: Haggis is amazing. I went to Scotland on a business trip in February, and the engineers made me eat haggis. I'm a vegetarian and I declared haggis an unofficial vegetable so I could get away with eating it several more times that trip. Then I went home and invented a vegetarian haggis that tastes enough like real haggis to make me happy. Heh.
I also invented diet Scotch tablet. No artificial sweeteners, no carbs, zero glycemic index, but real butter and vanilla and a shot of fifteen-year-old Glenfiddich. I have to literally lock it in a box with a lock to keep from nibbling it all day.
Zombie Brits MUST EAT BRAINS
@rtmccormick: Then you'd better give up eating meat altogether, since the whole circulatory system is designed to move wastes from the cells to the kidneys.
Someone did a really funny video about a Chinese restaurant that specializes in animal... uh, manhoods. Apparently some Chinese men believe eating them enhances their, um, virility.
Video safe for work, audio debatable (depends where you work): [leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com]
@Neecy: I had duck hearts not too long ago. They just tasted like very strong, dark meat. I don't think I could eat a large portion of heart, but it was fine in a small portion with other things.
I liked liver when I was a kid, but I haven't had it since then.
@speedwell: I've been served snake penis in liquor while in Asia. It's interesting.
Snake penis is the Viagra of the Chinese. And they aren't advertised during NFL games I watch with my family, so I prefer them.
@The Name's Ash78, Housewares:
My mom made the best oxtail stew. God that stuff was good. At the end you sucked the melted marrow out of the tail bones. No, it wasn't gross!
@Neecy:
I agree. My mom cooked a mean dish of sauteed chicken livers and onions, which she served on toast. Yum. We also occasionally had beef liver (although it's been so long, I can't remember much about it or how it was cooked).
I always cook the giblets that come inside a whole chicken or turkey -- saute the liver in a little butter and eat right away; add the heart and other organs to soup or stew. Chicken hearts are fairly tender and yummy.
@yagisencho: Spam isn't organ meat, its actually pretty high quality stuff.
While it isn't excellent for you health-wise, it isn't crap meat. :P
@speedwell: I found it interesting how they were all sort of "star" shaped.
I'd imagine it'd be one of those meats without flavor of its own so it would do well in stews and soup..
@Pinget: You don't get Gout from HCFS, Gout is caused (generally) by a diet over rich in protein, and alcohol. Of course Coke does allow for Rum and cokes so maybe they aren't entirely blameless...
Sorry, the winner is Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
There was a little too much 'Johnny Utah' in his voice for me.
This article explains why every city has 50 Chinese restaurants but you rarely if ever see a British one.
Personally I'm just in love with the phrase "variety meat." It sounds like something you'd get from a Figi's catalogue in a pretty little tin with a small cutting board and a loaf of smoked cheddar.
@speedwell: Agreed, haggis is delicious! I play the bagpipes and on my trip to Scotland I was duty-bound to try some. Absolutely amazing. You can't get it here in the states, not the real stuff. I can't explain how good it is to people who have never tried it - just know what it is.
@yasth:
Ah but there are new ways - [www.diseaseproof.com]
Which is why age at onset is creeping lower, and number of sufferers is skyrocketing. I learned this the hard way when my coke-addicted husband got gout.
Official statement from the USA to the UK shortly after reading this information:
"Eww"
@Neecy: chopped liver (chicken liver cooked, ground, mixed with some sort of fat, and served on crackers)
@The Name's Ash78, Housewares: I've noticed an uptick in ears, tripe, kidneys, and such offal in my own grocery store here in NorCal. I don't think its just UK. People all over are looking for cheap sources of protein. And, beans won't do!
I've actually been looking into beans, which I'd much rather eat as a staple than tripe, but alas, I still don't know how to make the things edible.
@P_Smith: I'll eat a good amount of organ and offal, being of asian descent. I'll eat livers, kidneys (I would, but I haven't yet), ears, eyeballs, hearts, gizzards, I love that stuff.
But, I draw the line at certain fish offal. Fish intestine, and fish milt just make my skin crawl.
Fish intestine soup is one of the most visually unappealing things I've ever been served, and I find the texture downright nauseating. I tried it, didn't like it.
Fish milt... I mean, who wants to eat a bag of sperm? There are many things that I'll eat, but that's just gross.
Mmmm! Menudo!
mmmm, sounds like Haggis [en.wikipedia.org]