In Defense of Offal

You may have thought I was joking in my last post about digging in to a steaming bowl of spinal cord. While I do admit to using the line for the sake of humor, the truth is, I would be more than happy to chow down on such a rare dish if I were confidant that it was well prepared. 

You may or may not know that traditionally, the Chinese diet includes all edible or nutrient carrying parts of an animal. This would include all organs, facial parts, tendons, and genitalia. Of course, the majority of North Americans out there, as well as a growing number of younger Chinese, find this concept 'weird' or 'gross'. This 'civilized' segment of the world, is nauseated at the idea of eating an animal's ear, nose, spleen, or tendon. To them, the only reasonable part of an animal to consume is a thin slice of muscle, cut into some sort of nice rectangular shape, or reduced further into little cubes or strips. They must have their meat dressed to appear like anything but what it is: a piece of dead animal.

Of course, anyone who eats bologna or hot dogs--which is pretty much everyone in the aforementioned group--consumes the majority of these animal parts as well, but they are either unaware of this fact or prefer not to know. Perhaps they imagine that Oscar Mayer harvests its famous product from the wiener tree, or that McNuggets are simply formed from some extra tender cut of chicken breast. To me, it is a very simple matter of accepting what these processed foods are made of, realizing they taste good, putting two and two together and saying, hey, these animal parts must taste pretty good too. I see it is as part of the process of maturing as a human being, of opening oneself up to new experiences--much like traveling to unfamiliar places, or reading books about unfamiliar topics. When I was five years old I thought green pepper was disgusting, but I tried it again and eventually I grew to like it. The same goes for alcohol, strong cheeses, fatty meats, and yes, organs. It's all good.

There are those who refuse to accept as valid, what is foreign to their experience. The diets of such people, are guided by what their families prepared when they were children, just as their values and ideas about the world are primarily guided by what they heard at the dinner table. I try not to be judgmental about how others live their lives, and I have been guilty in the past of the sins I now accuse others of. As long as you're not Jeffrey Daumer, I don't really care what you eat. But when I hear words like 'gross', 'weird' or 'disgusting' directed at the diets of other cultures (as I often do, living here in Taiwan), I can't help but get my back up. It is a subtle way of claiming that these cultures are somehow less civilized than one's own. 

I see the opposite as true. If one is to eat meat, and actually considered this choice philosophically, it seems the honorable and reasonable thing to do is to eat all parts of the animal. Furthermore, one should be able to kill an animal and cut it up. Rather than seeing this as a disgusting chore, it should be seen as respecting what the animal was when it was alive. If one cannot do any of the above, isn't there a certain amount of hypocrisy at work?

So as promised, here it is, the recipe for spinal cord soup. Copied from healthy-chinese-recipe.com:

Spinal Cord with Lotus Seed Soup
 [with obvious grammatical errors corrected]

Ingredients:
500g pig spine (mainly eat the spinal cord)
250g lotus seed
1 tsp salt
Procedure:
1. Clean pig's spine (be careful don't let the spinal cord come out).
2. Marinate lotus seeds in warm water for 30mins.
3. Add the above 2 materials in a casserole dish, add 1000g water.
4. Cook 2 hours at low heat.
5. Add salt to taste, serve
Serving Method: Drink soup, eat lotus and spinal cord (some will come out after cooking) and drink the soup. A cup of soup with spinal cord inside and 30g lotus seeds per serving. Serve as side dish at lunch. 2 times a week. 4-8 times will see the effect.
Benefical Function: Nourish blood and tonic kidney. Suitable for spermatorrhea, paleness, weak limbs and fatigue, waist and knees soreness and sore muscles.



 This recipe comes from a Chinese health site , and was listed primarily as a remedy for Spermatorrhea. If you are unfamiliar with the term, as I myself was five minutes ago, it means involuntary ejaculation; also known as cumming-in-your-pants. Happily, this is not a problem of mine, but if it is for you, treat yourself to a nice big bowl of spine soup. You might even like it.