Amanda Miller
Columnist
Lettuce Eat Local

I should warn you now, this is going to be an awful article. No wait, I mean offal. Although there’s clearly potential for both. 

I assume most people, or the majority of Americans at least, find little coincidence in the fact that those words are homonyms. What could be more appropriate than “the entrails and internal organs of an animal used as food” sounding the same as “very bad or unpleasant”? The great many synonyms for awful are even more awful than its definition: ghastly, repugnant, abysmal, gruesome, etc. There are no synonyms listed for offal, but the argument could be made that the same list would apply. 

Could be made, but shall not be here. Food critics are notorious for scathing reviews, sometimes convincing people not to try particular dishes or restaurants. I’d rather encourage people to try things, though, no matter how offal they sound. 

I wish the dictionary I used hadn’t said offal was “used as food”…that sounds very suspicious right from the start. Let’s just go ahead and say they are the edible internal organs of animals we are used to eating anyway; offal is kind of just different cuts of meat, and also not exactly, since it’s organs instead of flesh. 

Defining it broadly isn’t really making it any more appetizing, but I think specifics help at least a little: tongue, heart, and liver don’t sound quite as bad to me (although I’m fully aware it might work the opposite way for others). I’ve made beef tongue tacos; the turkey heart is the best part of that little giblets treasure bag; and a few crispy fried chicken livers can hit the spot. Don’t forget about rocky mountain oysters! Cuisines all around the world enjoy bonus parts, like Mexican menudo/tripe soup, British steak and kidney pies, and Malaysian battered deep-fried paru/lungs. 

I have tried a variety of offal things, from roasted fish eyeballs to pork brains canned in milk to charred goat testicles, but my goodness I do not recommend googling “how to eat brains.” Even the BBC’s very basic brain-peeling prepping procedure had my brain shuddering and my stomach churning, so that’s probably a sign I shouldn’t continue on with finding out how to cook stomach. If I had grown up preparing and eating some of these things along with the “normal” parts like wings or ribs, I’m sure it wouldn’t seem strange, but it was starting to feel offally awful. 

Offal can be a bit tricky to manage beyond the idea of it. Organs have a different flavor and texture than meat does, sometimes very distinctly so. I won’t go into detail, but I think you know what I mean — offal can often be off-putting. But not always! A little here and there can be an interesting addition to a diet, and intermittency is the right way to eat offal anyway. Again, it’s a bit tricky, as many organs are packed with certain nutrients…but to such a concentration that overdoing it can be a problem, so moderation is key. There is also debate over some organs, whether they are safe to consume at all, considering their function in the animal’s body. 

Perhaps all this discussion is making you salivate over the thought of brains on toast (that’s a thing) or pickled tongue (also a thing), or perhaps it’s solidifying your stance against such offal things. I just hope that if you make jokes about it, they’re better than my offal ones. 

Offally Unusual Muffins

I am not typically of fan of hiding ingredients in things — my kids know if there’s spinach in a smoothie or mushrooms in the spaghetti sauce — so I didn’t hide the fact that there was liver in these muffins. Not that I could have for long, as there was clearly something awfully different about them. We get our cows butchered so the liver has been building up in the freezer, and seeing this recipe piqued my interest…although I believe it alerted my husband’s fight or flight mode. I fed it to several guests (with warning), and no one died; some even took seconds, so there’s that. Honestly, they weren’t my favorite by a long stretch, but they weren’t awful.

Prep tips: whatever you do, at that first step, don’t look in the blender or take a whiff. Benson and I almost gave up on the spot. 

6 ounces livers (chicken or beef)

2 very ripe bananas

2 eggs

½ cup melted coconut oil

½ cup honey

½ cup coconut flour

¼ cup tapioca starch or cornstarch 

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups blueberries

Blend the liver and bananas until smooth. Take amusement in what you just did, and then pulse in remaining ingredients except berries. Stir in the blueberries, transfer to a paper-lined muffin tin, and bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes. Eat warm.