Monday, 08 November 2010
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Be Still, My Beef Heart
Thousands of years ago, appetizing veggies were hard to come by. Our ancestors did not have access to the type of nutritionally rich greens we do today and also, unlike today, vitamins were not added to their food (enriched unbleached flour, anyone?) So, how did they get their Omega-3s and stay healthy?
Organ meat! Waste not, what not; they consumed every part of the animal they hunted. It went sort of like this - the bison ate the grass (loaded with antioxidants), man hunted and killed bison, all bison meat consumed. The advantage of eating organ meat is that the organ meat was then enriched with the antioxidants from the grass.
In an attempt to eat more antioxidants during the colder months when vegetables are hard to come by, I decided to cook beef heart. I did some research online to find a good beef heart recipe. They all require a lot of extras that I didn't have, so I figured I could just marinate, cut up and saute the heart and just add it to a plate of pasta for tonight's dinner. I marinated the meat in some olive oil, garlic, onion, salt and pepper, nothing fancy.
My husband, an extremely picky eater, was not informed of the "cut of the beef" he was eating. So, I received his honest opinion. According to him, the beef was tough but still pretty good. I agree, the beef was tough, so cutting it up before cooking is a must, and it just tasted like regular beef. I tasted the blood (sorry to be so graphic, vegetarians!) and sort of just like a steak.
The reason why this meat was a little tougher is because it is a cut from a grass-fed cow. Grass-fed animals tend to be a little tougher. I purchased the meat from Elk Trails Bison, a farmer at the Saturday Union Square Greenmarket. The farmer is probably the sweetest and most friendly person I have ever met - a true farmer with the overalls and all. For all of those New Yorkers out there, check out his stand.
My next affair with beef heart may be one in which I follow a recipe or perhaps I'll find out what the Elk Trails Bison farmer recommends. Either way, I plan on purchasing beef heart in the future and perhaps venturing to other organ meat soon!
Have you ever tried beef heart or any other organ meat? What do you think, are you grossed out or are you interested in giving it a try?
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- From: GinaG@xanga
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Comments (13)
"Thousands of years ago, appetizing veggies were hard to come by. Our ancestors did not have access to the type of nutritionally rich greens we do today"
Can we get a source on that?
@fauxSHOyo@xanga - I'm currently taking a agriculture history course in which two very prominent food historians, Andy Smith and Annie Hauck Lawson, have stated this as fact. You can easily find information about this by typing Paleolithic Diet Organ Meat into a search engine online:
http://www.ihavenet.com/Health-Stone-Age-Diet-Surprisingly-Good-For-a-Healthy-Life-Today-PT.html
http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/nutrition/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/89081-caveman-paleolithic-diet/
It isn't that they didn't have ANY access to vegetables but their societies existed before a formal agricultural system was created, so most of their food intake was meat. The only way their brains fully developed was by eating omega-3 rich foods, such as organ meat.
i've tried liver of an animal i cannot recall when i was little and hated it. still do to this day. the mere sight of it grosses me out and looking at the beef heart isn't any better.
cannot do it. any organ of the animal grosses me out.
i actually love organ meat... maybe it's an asian thing? it's kind of iron-y and mineral-ly, a taste i find quite attractive. no, i do not suck on pennies.
you should try coagulated blood cake next xD
I love heart. tongue is good too, bulls testicles aren't bad either. I hate liver though.
@aoiartemis@xanga - I have to try those coagulated blood cakes. they sound good.
I like organ meat, but I was raised in a household where eating heart, tongue, gizzard, tripe and liver was considered normal. My favorite dishes involve liver.
I like organ meat. I've eaten livers, hearts, stomaches, tripe, pig blood, pig ear (lol), etc. But I was raised to eat a lot of stuff that other people (other than a couple of my friends who were also raised like this) consider disgusting or weird. I'll try most stuff. I'm pretty sure being Chinese has something to do with all the stuff I eat.
I've eaten just about every part of a chicken, pig, and cow. As someone who loves food and cooking, picky eaters are just not cool.
@noul07@xanga - I second that thought about picky "foodies"
I'm surprised that you didn't have to do something to take the heavy taste of iron (from the blood) out of the meat. I'm glad it worked out for you guys, I'll try it sometime.
@Beb3Lika@xanga - liver and heard have completely different textures.I dont like liver either. but heart and gizzards are my fav. you're missing out=D
Gizzard, tripe, rabbit brain :)
I'm quite sure I've eaten other parts as well, but I can't recall any at the moment.
I just don't like liver. At all.