Eating offal
Simply offal!
While in Europe eating offal is seen as part of a rich gastronomic culture, it has only recently started gaining momentum on the local restaurant circuit. Nikki Werner explores whether it's the recession or if there's more to it than that.
When it comes to eating offal, it's all in the mind. Last year a report in UK newspaper The Times suggested the French might be returning to tripe, trotters and brain over beef (offal sales increased by 15%) not because they are poorer but because with all the talk of times being tough they think they are poorer.
Locally, there are those who eat offal out of necessity regardless of fashion or global financial meltdown. And there are committed traditionalists who fly the flag for South African preparations and frown upon eating offal anywhere other than home - cooked just the way "Ma" used to make it. But there's an emerging breed that struts a kind of dining-out machismo, an Ieat- everything one-upmanship that boosts credentials in food circles and impresses the resident chef.
Not long ago, more humble cuts of meat started showing up on menus. It began with lamb shanks, left, right and centre and then pork belly became the restaurant darling. Like a food-lovers gateway drug, less conventional cuts led to offal and soon sweetbreads became a signature dish.
The obvious thought is that it's a cheap trick: buy in a budget cut and slap on a hefty mark-up. And as Paul Shepherd of Marco Paulo in Durban admits: "Sure, restaurateurs are looking for cuts that won't break the bank. A calf's liver sells for R80 while a fillet goes for R130. It keeps things affordable for the customer and the restaurant still makes a decent profit, but we also need a world recession to realise there's more to life than fillet and roast chicken." He's doing his bit by cooking up a sell-out Venetian-style tripe.
But it largely depends on what you're looking for - calf's liver might be found for a steal, but other so-called cheaper cuts are in fact quite difficult to come by. Township butcheries get priority on the whole head because it makes economic sense: it's fiddly to process and the demand from highprofile chefs isn't as big.
At Cape Town's Roundhouse, PJ Vadas has boldly devoted thirty percent of his menu to offal, but laments that it took seven months to find beef cheeks. "They are a problem," says Vadas, "I also have to import lamb tongues and sheep's brains from Australia and New Zealand. Sweetbreads are easier to get hold of because demand has really increased." Peter Pankhurst of Savoy Cabbage, although oblivious to foodie fads (he's been running an annual offal festival for 11 years) concurs: "Are there any cheaper cuts left? Offal is still more of a mind thing than it is a pocket thing."
The need to feel comforted is definitely a state of mind. And as we find our way out of crisis it's the lip-sticking quality of gently braised oxtail, lamb's neck and pork belly that makes us feel better again.
These fatty morsels are best suited to an old-fashioned cooking style and recurring trend predictions have been: nostalgia, a return to the farm and the slow-food revival. Part of the rural landscape along with planting kitchen gardens and baking our own bread is the ritual and rationale of the slaughter and the meals that follow: The head first - only eaten absolutely fresh, tripe the following night (after a day of rigorous cleaning) and after that the liver, heart and kidneys. The choice cuts are stored and savoured at leisure.
More than broadening our gastronomic experience, however, eating offal has to do with a good conscience. It seems like the right thing to do as we repent for past excess. As London chef Fergus Henderson says in his cult classic Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking (Bloomsbury, 2004):
"It would be disingenuous to the animal not to make the most of the whole beast; there is a set of delights, textural and flavoursome, which lie beyond the fillet."
At his shrine to offal, St John, Henderson began championing much-maligned meat cuts back in 1994, and proselytised the masses with roasted bone marrow and crispy pigs' tails. In the '80s it was Marco Pierre White who, by serving it, paid tribute to Pierre Koffman's trotter stuffed with chicken and morels. Indeed, chefs are always looking for the next big thing and similarly, serious diners want to conquer the next food frontier. We once winced at the thought of eating sliced raw fish but now no one bats an eyelid on passing a sushi bar in a strip mall.
But let's face it, confronting offal can be still difficult despite the puzzlement of chefs like Peter Pankhurst: "That people are willing to watch Saw IV slasher horror movies but then can't face a piece of liver on their plate is something I don't understand."
The reasons we're squeamish are obvious; ill-prepared offal described as smelling like "wet dog" or "eating a face cloth" is no match for a vacuum-packed piece of rump. And the word hardly does it any favours - it sounds a lot like "awful" and tracing the entymology one gets back to "garbage". What's more, the names for offal dishes are either horrifying (faggots, head cheese, bath chaps) or euphemistic such as sweetbreads for the thymus gland and pancreas, chitterlings for the pigs' large intestines and lights for lungs.
It's no surprise the commercially-driven Americans employ the coy label of "variety meats" and repackage "unsavoury bits" into hotdogs, but perhaps the nononsense European approach to offal is more prudent: it's a fact of life, if not a treat - an approach best summed up by the Swahili quote that opens Calvin W. Schwabe's book Unmentionable Cuisine (University Press of Virginia, 1979): "Every meat is meat". Liver with fried onions is a Venetian speciality and sophisticated Florentines eat lampredotto (steaming tripe in a bun) at sidewalk stalls as you and I would eat a boerie roll at a fête. The French adore intestine-filled andouillette and harness the gelatinous quality of trotters for brawn, the Scots have their haggis, the Germans love their leberwurst and in Catalonia juicy pork cheeks are prized.
Here at home, offal is the common denominator in many of our diverse cultures: skaapkop, pens en pootjies (the slow-simmered dish of sheep's head, tripe, trotters and potatoes), "smilies" (a whole sheep's heads where the lips curl back to reveal the teeth on cooking), "walkie talkies" (a stew of chicken heads and feet) and beestepote en -pens - curried cow heel and tripe. Less mainstream are Karoo oysters (aka ram's testicles) and the pofadder, a sausage of large intestine filled with spiced liver, hearts, and kidneys.
But where are the South African interpretations in this high-end offal resurgence? Trippa ala Fiorintina, sherry-braised veal kidneys on toast with mushrooms and bacon, and pig's trotter with seared scallop and truffle oil might be of-themoment dishes, but is this European slant a means of making it more palatable for urban patrons? As one butcher put it, "because meat has been so cheap in this country for so long, many people don't bother with offal." "Bother" being the operative word. It requires skill to turn offal into something special and delicate, timeconsuming techniques are called for. But offal can be rewarding if you treat it right. Perhaps all that's really needed is a great marketing campaign, like the photograph in Sophia Loren's 1970s cookbook Cucina Con Amore; a sultry Loren gathering up tortellini towards her bosom. Recipe ala Loren? A fi lling of butter-sautéed calf's brains.
We've seen Nigella Lawson on television sharing her fondness for a good pig's ear as she coquettishly pulled a ziplocked specimen from her freezer - "I just love this fried". And although our Minki hasn't yet professed a penchant for sheep's tails smouldering on the coals, maybe we should recognise offal's appearance in the finedining arena as another kind of rebranding regardless of where the recipe originates. That way, just as we all rushed out to buy sushi kits, eventually diners might start experimenting with it in their homes.
WHERE TO EAT OFFAL
Aubergine: 20 Hillcrest centre, Old Main Road, Hillcrest,
Durban. Tel 031 765 6050. Try their take on the Koffman
trotter or order poached pigs' trotters (bollito misto style) with
lentils and mustard fruits. The pan-fried calf's liver with white
wine and onion jam sells out.
Marco Paulo: Shop 3, Accord House, 2 Golf course Drive,
Mount Edgecombe, Durban. Tel 031 502 2221. Classical
Venetian tripe with tomato, white wine, very soft garlic and
lots of parmesan. Regulars look forward to the monthly
special of devilled lamb's kidneys on toast.
The Roundhouse: The Glen, Camps Bay. Tel 021 438 4347.
Cape Town's answer to St. John; deboned pig's head, braised,
crisped and carved and served warm with green leaves and
pickled quince, roasted marrow bones with oxtail marmalade,
braised springbok tongues with red wine emulsion and potato
ghocchi - the list goes on.
Savoy Cabbage: 101 Hout Street, Cape Town. Tel 021 424
3366. The Spanish tripe with chourizo is a firmly entrenched
favourite. Look out for the annual offal festival in July to
enjoy the likes of calf brain raviolis, liver and onions with
house-cured bacon, poached and pickled tongue with a
Madeira sauce and skilpadjies (lambs liver wrapped in caul
fat) with porcini and red wine sauce.
Carne: 70 Keerom Street, Cape Town. Tel 021 424 3460. Fellow
chefs are talking about these pan-fried sweetbreads with
sage butter and artichoke puree but don't overlook the calves
liver with balsamic caramelised onions or the veal kidney's
with garlic and parsley salad and fried potatoes.
La Madeleine: 22 Priory Road, Lynwood Ridge, Pretoria.
Tel 012 361 3667. Lambs brains fried until crispy and golden
with lemon butter sauce and capers used to be a mainstay
on the menu. More recent off erings are sweetbreads with
balsamic and ginger and on a Sunday, kidneys in wholegrain
mustard sauce.
Pembrey's: Brenton Road, Belvidere. Tel 044 386 0005.
PJ Vadas's parents laid the foundation for his love of offal.
Go for brains on toast with caper butter or pan-fried lambs
sweetbreads with rhubarb compote and pea shoots.
