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Crappy Gift Guide: offal
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About to become awfully offal (CSU)
Few kids sit on Santa's lap and ask for offal. Offal is the spare parts of slaughtered animals. Pork chops are not offal, but intestines are. If a kid did ask for it, it would pack easily on the jolly old elf's sleigh.
Think you've never tasted offal? Think again. Do you know all the ingredients of that sandwich you had for lunch? Liver is an example as is our regional delicacy, Rocky Mountain Oysters. Are sweetbreads pastries? Look it up.
Germans eat sausage and Turks eat kokorec, foods made from intestines. They are careful to clean all the nasty stuff out of the intestines before refilling them with tastier items, so offering these dishes for the holidays would not be that crappy. If intestines make you squeamish, perhaps the traditional Scottish dish, haggis, meats and vegetables boiled in a sheep's stomach, would be more to your liking. My grandmother, a descendant of the Palatine Boors who settled Pennsylvania, would fill a pig's stomach with all the parts of the animal except the squeal. It's great stuff.
Where can you find offal in Denver? Any butcher shop would be happy to sell any spare parts they have in inventory. The Asian and Latino markets along Alameda and Federal are treasure troves of offal. Asians sell the pig from its feet to its ears and everything in between and inside. Try the menudo from the carnicerias, made from tripe and when served as a spicy soup it cures hangovers. A perfect post-holiday party meal!
With food prices on the rise and the economy slumping, offal is a good way to stretch your budget. Just make sure it's been well cleaned to keep it from being crappy.
I'll leave some carrots for the reindeer if Santa will leave some scrapple (pork parts and corn meal mush fried to perfection and served with maple syrup) for me.
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