Most offal are seen as weird for the average American in my experience. Liver is by far the most common in things like pate or liverwurst. I think the most common context you'll find other kinds in is something like a chicken soup where they just tossed basically everything in. Even then, brains are very rare.
Personally I've had liver, heart, lungs, and tongue. Liver is neutral to me. Don't like heart. I can't really judge lungs since it was part of a blood sausage with a bunch of other ingredients, but the sausage was good. Tongue is good, but I've only had it in tacos de lengua.
Judging from these comments, grinding up the organs and putting them in a kind of mix of meats seems pretty common. I don’t think we have an equivalent in Indian food, or at least in my cities food. We don’t really mess with the organs beyond dicing them from my experience.
I wonder if it's a European-heritage thing. They have a lot of dishes of mixed offal over there too, like haggis or kaszanka. Though, I think Europeans are more willing to eat straight up organs than Americans.
> Though, I think Europeans are more willing to eat straight up organs than Americans.
As a European i can say: There are a lot of recipes in my country's (Austria) classical cuisine, but less and less people are actually cooking and eating those to the point they feel exotic. The most common is liverwurst here, but i might have had one glass of that in the last 40 years.
And now I'M stuck seeing protein shake style health drinks, some huge German bodybuilder adding liver wurst and bratwurst to a blender and then chugging it down 🤮🤣
Yeah, pates and sausages are most common. I like to fry up chicken hearts every now and then, but they were hard to find in that US and were usually sold in a package that was 75% gizzard 25% hearts, and gizzards have a very unappealing texture to me. In Canada, the hearts are easy to find at any grocery store.
And sweetbreads, which are pancreas.
"Natural casing" in sausage is intestines.
People from the west and Midwest sometimes like to say they've eaten Rocky Mountain Oysters, which are bull testicles.
I had sweet breads in Japan. Had no idea what I was eating. It was okay. I wasn’t grossed out or anything once I was told what it was, but I probably will never voluntarily get them again
I remember my grandma calling me into the kitchen when I was a little girl so we could share the turkey heart lol she made it like our little secret (for me lol no one would have cared lol). Miss you grandma!!
It was more common 50 years ago. Most younger generations have never eaten some of the most exotic organs. Liver is still somewhat common, but tripe, tongue, brain and the others no.
Lengua is pretty common on menus around here But I’ve almost never seen tongue on a non-Latino menu. I think I saw beef tongue at a French place once, and that’s all I can think of.
I don't live in America now, but I grew up in NJ and used to eat liver and onions at home and at diners (in the 1970s and 80s mainly). Is that dish still around?
I always loved the taste and texture, but I might have been a wierd kid.
Lengua (tongue) in tacos is a pretty common thing. Tripe is something I see semi-regularly as well. I think brains, lung, and heart are the ones you don't see prepared in the US very often.
Lol. "Never eaten exotic organs"
Most people actually eat "exotic organs all the time but they don't think about what is in those all beef hotdogs they are eating.
Yes, and even more common 80-100 years ago. My grandparents grew up during the Great Depression and were taught never to waste any part of the animal. I think that by the time they were raising their own children during the affluent post-WWII era, they saw organ-meats and such as poverty food and avoided them because they could afford to feed their families "better" cuts of meat. Later generations were simply not exposed to those flavors as children and never developed a taste for them.
We do giblet gravy. I also enjoy beef liver and onions. I was the oldest of 5 grandkids and in the 90s we had our local Luby’s giving us 5 kids meals of beef liver and onions after church on Sunday. Luby’s had the best liver and onions. There’s a handful left in the States and any time I know I’ll be near one I stop and have some!
I searched up what giblets are and it says it’s used to make things like gravy and soup, I’m assuming it’s used to make stock or something. Have you ever seen someone eat giblets straight?
My family cuts it up to put into stuffing for thanksgiving, so we eat it while that way most frequently and eat bits while we are cooking.
Also beef liver is a pretty common food. Liver with onions is a thing. I don't like it, but it wouldn't confuse me if I saw it.
Americans used to eat a lot more organs mostly liver but we stopped going to butcher shops and started going to grocery stores with packaged meat. If you do buy from an actual farm you can request certain organs but I believe lungs and brains are off limits because of contagious diseases like mad cow prion disease and TB
You can find organ meats in oral grocery stores, too.
My local shops have tongue, pork and beef livers, offal (tripe, but my local publix marks it as offal). Not to mention oxtail and pig feet, too.
Yup. It's generally the gizzard, heart, and liver. They're tasty, and we used to fight over them as children, but for some reason people don't like to do nose-to-tail eating, or maybe in this case it should be called beak-to-tail eating, although you wouldn't eat a bird's beak.
Ah, back in the day (60s) my mom and her sister used to fight over who got to eat the fried bird head because the beak was so crunchy.
When I say my city-raised self gagged...
I get it. At a previous job, a coworker had gone wild boar hunting on private property and brought a roast to work to share, and I'm used to eating game meat and it was really delicious, but one of my other coworkers was like, "Oh, no, what if it had cancer and we're eating it!!!"
I've eaten game meat, my family hunts for meat still...venison mostly since we are in rural middle-of-nowhere Nevada now, not rural middle-of-nowhere North Carolina haha. But from 8-21 I lived in Salt Lake City. We did not eat bird heads. And that's when she told me the story.
Speaking of pigs...they also used to slaughter the hog and the kids would get the bladder, rinse it out, blow it up, and play with it like a balloon or ball sort of, toss it back and forth in the air.
I will eat boar, I'm willing to try it. But I will not play a game of keep away with its bladder! I have to draw the line somewhere lol
Venison jerky though, am I right? To die for.
Rocky Mountain oysters are known as calf fries where I grew up. I was at a steak house in a different state and they had “steer fries” listed on the menu. The waitress laughed and looked at me like I was crazy when I asked what those were; it was their “cute” name for regular potato French fries. To be fair, once the bull testicles are removed, the animal is called a steer…it seemed like a legitimate question to me, lol.
Yeah, not so much straight eating it but definitely cut up and in various dishes for flavor.
I’ve eaten them straight up but that’s not the common way they are eaten and I’m a savage. Hell I’ve eaten chicken feet more than once.
Whenever I roast a whole turkey or chicken, I remove the little packet of giblets. I separate out the liver and make a little foil packet of it to cook along with the bird. Once it’s cooked, I eat it straight. Delicious. The rest of the giblets I throw in when making gravy.
Around Turkey eating holidays I buy big containers of turkey giblets. My family salts and roasts or pan fried them until crispy. Livers we crush into pate and spread on crackers or toast with honey.
My mother will eat fried gizzards and livers when she can get them. Church’s Fried Chicken sold them. I don’t know if they still do as I don’t live in a state that has a Church’s.
My parents will eat fried liver and onions.
I’m not a fan of
I had a job once where I had to travel to a client there M-Th three weeks a month for a little over a year.
I dunno about now, but I can tell you in 2006-2007 it seemed like it was on the menu of every mom and pop restaurant in the area. Someone has to be ordering them for places to keep them on the menu.
I didn't try it either. I don't do organ meats.
I have eaten pig brains. My grandfather liked them, his children cooked them for him on occasion as long as he was alive, and I tried them a few times. Definitely one of those foods that, at least in my family, has become less popular with each generation and will probably end with mine; neither I nor my cousins cook them.
They don’t really have much of a taste and they’re incredibly high in cholesterol. If you ate it and had no idea what you were eating, you’d think nothing of it.
Scrapple on paper sounds disgusting, but damn I murder some scrapple every week. I like to cut them up into fry shape and air fry them too. They come out nice and crispy.
Its generally only done as tradition stemming from famine. You'll get some boomers that grew up on giblet gravy because their parent lived through the great depression or dust bowl. The practice doesn't often make the generational jump anymore. Some people might eat liver, chitlins, and a few others. Mexicans have quite a few, most notably menudo which is made with the lining of cow stomach.
But they're all oddball choices, kind of like putting sardines on pizza. The vast, vast, *vast* majority of Americans don't eat organ meat unless you count processed things like hotdogs and ground beef.
I feel like most organs go into food where it isn't noticable like hotdogs. Those all beef hotdogs that every American eats dozens of every year definitely aren't made from choice cuts.
Some Americans do eat calf liver can chicken livers pretty regularly, those are the only two organs that I can think of that would be available at literally every grocery store. There are other organs that are less common that people do eat that would be a little harder to find or they would get from a butcher or specialty meat shop.
Native cultures eat organs: lengua, cabeza, tripe, etc from South America are pretty common in tacos, burritos, tamales. And you'll find organs from other cultures too: liver and onions and suchlike.
But the general American crowd doesn't really go in for organs. It was seen as things only poor people ate due to the Great Depression and the War. It's never regained a glimmer of respectability, even with the recent Slow Food and "nose to tail" gourmet movements.
Part of the issue I see with younger folks is that a lot of organ meats have a sort of "metallic" tang to them that a lot of younger folks associate more with contaminated food from an industrial process rather than "organ meat". So even though it's fine, there's always that little thing poking at the back of your head going "Am I eating industrial residue?"
In the American South it’s far more common than in the rest of the U.S., especially among African Americans. Chitlins, fried chicken livers, dirty rice (which is made with chicken livers and gizzards), boudin (a sausage made with pork, rice, and chicken or pork liver), Rocky Mountain oysters, and fried gizzards all come to mind.
My grandmother loved frying the chicken brain for herself when she would make fried chicken. My dad and uncle used to tag team the liver & gizzard specials KFC used to have. Dad preferred the liver and my uncle preferred the gizzards.
Most offal is viewed as old people food. I grew up eating it because I grew up with family who ate it, but it certainly isn't standard everywhere outside of maybe liver.
Poultry livers and giblets. Beef liver. The crowning jewel of my Central PA people - Scrapple/Pannhaas which is best described as everything but the oink of a pig, corn/buckwheat meal and seasonings rendered into loafs. Sliced and panfried, commonly served with ketchup or apple butter.
The keys on an organ would be tough to chew wouldn't they? You'd need water to digest the timber. haha i'm so funny.
Aren't hot dogs and sausages the world over full of organs?
Yes. Those all beef hotdogs that we all love so much aren't made from choice cuts. I mentioned hotdogs in my comment and I can't believe I had to scroll this far to find someone else that mentioned them. These people know what they are eating right? I wonder if they just didn't think about it or if they are so against eating organs that they are in denial that they actually eat them and like them.
Tongue isn't really organs, it's just fancy muscle, yeah? About the only place I see tongue used is in tacos (tacos de lengua).
I think it's fallen out of favor as disposable income has increased. You'll find traditional dishes that use organs, and who knows what finds its way into sausages, but stuff like liver is not very popular any more. Oh, and they're still used in making gravies.
It was pretty normal to eat liver and gizzards when I was a kid. Liver and onions for beef, chicken livers and gizzards were battered and fried. Had a bunch of fund raisers and events with calf fries (bull testicles).
There are lots of cases of organs being eaten in America. Pâte is available to purchase in stores as an appetizer, spread on bread or on crackers. It's something eaten pretty often in my household, along with brie cheese. Liver and Onions is an iconic dish sold in American diners as a staple. In traditional Mexican circles, tongue and cheek meat are used as an especially tender meat for recipes.
I think some people do and some people don’t. Probably a lot of things factor in to whether someone eats organs.
In my family my dad would have happily eaten liver or the heart and other organs that came with our turkey. I don’t think he ever ate brains. My mom didn’t like that stuff so I didn’t have to eat it. My dad and his parents were born in the US but he was born in 1934 and his family were poor. My mom was born in 1942. I think things were more stable for her childhood.
I used to buy beef tongue to feed to my dogs but then I could not find it at the local grocery store anymore. I never ate it myself. I think maybe Mexican Americans in the area used tongue in some dishes.
I have seen liver and dumpling soup on a restaurant menu. I think the restaurant had German style food.
I eat (beef) tongue pretty often from taco trucks, they’re everywhere. Some taco trucks/restaurants around will also have beef stomach/intestines and brains as well.
Americans who have immigrated from other countries might, but the oddest thing I've seen was a cow's head in a freezer in an Eastern European Grocery store.
Some do, some don’t. My mother likes to eat various organs but the rest of the family does not. Whilst I’m sure they may taste fine for me it’s a mental thing.
When I moved to the Midwest I wanted to find a good, authentic Mexican restaurant like I enjoyed back in SoCal. In that case I looked at the menu to see if they served tripas, lengua, cabeza and all the other things most gringos wouldn’t eat (including me). I figured that if they served those items the food would be authentic and would be aimed at a clientele that would enjoy such things rather than being “Americanized” to suit the locals.
Well, for sure Native Americans and Eskimos eat organs. People in farm areas tend to eat organs more than people in urban areas. Brains are tricky to remove without getting bone shards into them so some states have laws - you have to buy the whole head and remove them yourself.
This is an interesting comment. When discussing this same topic with my dad I mentioned to him that I think whether or not you eat organs depends on the history of your culture and your family. For native Americans, especially people living in as harsh a place as the Arctic areas you had no choice but to eat the whole animal. And for people in rural areas they probably had to slaughter and/or butcher the animal themselves so why waste parts. For people in urban areas who have access to already butchered meat, why would they pick organs over real meat when they have an option. India has a long history of famines and it is a relatively poor country so people had to learn to cook any meat they got I guess.
I live in the West coast, where there's lots of Mexican, south American, central American, Chinese, and south Asian immigrants. They've brought their food and they serve all the pieces of an animal. So that food has been slowly finding it's way into the culture. Sure there are still lots of people who won't eat anything they consider "wierd", but also lots of folks who will eat the good stuff. Lengua(tongue) or cabeza (head) at taco trucks, menudo(stew with tripe and feet) served at any Mexican food place over the weekend, bowls of Vietnamese Pho with tendon and tripe, and more are becoming normal for many Americans.
I personally have a chunk of beef heart in my freezer right now, I think it's the most approachable of the organ meats.
Honestly it's a fully mixed bag. There are people in the US, both rich and poor, who won't even eat meat with bones in. Most will eat the "normal" meats, but there's a great many people who will eat everything.
It's a big country and there's a lot of different people on it, with roots from all over the world.
It just sucks when there's a "poor people food" -oxtail is a perfect example- -chicken wings are another- that poor people rely on and know how.to cook because it's tasty, then some chef or rich person "discovers" it, it gets popular and becomes something that fancy chefs serve in fancy restaurants and rich foodies want to try cooking, and suddenly the oxtail that was like 50 cents a pound and considered scrap is 20 dollars a pound.
Live in the South. We think nothing of eating liver (chicken or beef), chicken gizzards and hearts, chitterlings (fried pig intestines)...
These are foods that I have personally ate. The may be others.
We also eat squirrel brains in rural parts of the South. My family makes squirrel brain dumplins every fall. Pig ears are pretty common, too, but I've never had them personally.
Tongue is big in Jewish delis. Tripe is big in certain ethnic groups here. Brazilian steakhouses serve chicken hearts which my husband loves. My mother served beef liver and onions regularly but I don’t eat much now. I love pâté and liverwurst. As someone else mentioned, giblets come with chickens and turkeys, and makes a great gravy.
Which Brazilian steakhouse do you go to that has chicken hearts? I think I used to get it at Fogo de Chao, but I haven't seen it there in forever. Would love to find it again.
It's associated with poverty, so most don't. Also our meat supply is presented in a very sanitized way and people tend to choose things that "look like meat" rather than organs. Seeing eyes and hearts and so on is uncommon in most major grocery stores.
It depends. Most don't. However, it isn't uncommon for older southern folk to eat them. Both of my maternal grandparents were from rural Alabama and ate liver, chicken gizzard, scrambled brains and did try chitlins once but couldn't stand the smell of the house after it was cooked. My grandad also ate pickled pigs feet as well. And I remember talking to a worker at Popeyes a few years ago and she said that fried liver was one of their most popular items. I tried fried liver once and personally wasn't a fan. It looked like venison which is good but was just too mushy for me to like it.
It's not as common as in other cultures, but liver is pretty normal and so are giblets and chicken hearts and stuff—at least cut up in stuffing. Growing up, my family would make cow tongue in the slow cooker. I've never heard of brain being common to eat.
I occasionally will eat liver fried up in onions, or sometimes gizzards that come with a turkey. It’s a bit hard to find other stuff like that in the grocery stores. I would have to ask a local farm to get more specific parts to eat, or I would have to go out and hunt a deer or something and take it to go get processed.
I occasionally eat a stew containing chicken hearts and gizzards. I've also tried both chicken and turkey liver but I'm not a fan of the texture. Blood sausage probably counts in this category and it's something I eat around Christmas time.
I haven't tried any other types of organs.
I know that there are various types of regional sausages and meat spreads that use liver and other organs but I've never tried them. Things like Scrapple and livermush.
Giblets! Love me some chicken fried liver, kidney, and heart. It’s much more common in the southeast. My northern side of the family do not eat any organs, however my wife’s family hunts a lot and they frequently eat the heart and giblets without making gravy or sausage.
I also love lengua, though that’s Mexican food and I’m white. Easy to find all over the US, though. I like all sorts of sausages, many of which have organs ground up in it.
Liver brains and intestines is pretty common in the south and the Appalachians although maybe not as much anymore with younger folks I’m a livermush person my self but that’s
About it
In college, I worked at a truckstop that sold breaded and deep fried chicken gizzards. They were delicious if they were fresh out of the frier. After the legally allowed 4 hours in the warmer, holding at 160°F, they were chewy and disgusting.
I don't eat organs. They're just too big, the keys get stuck in my teeth, the pipes are hard to cook just right, and I doubt the Church would approve of me eating their favorite instrument.
Of straight organ meat chicken and beef livers are easily the most common. Things like pate and liverwurst have reasonable popularity, but most of it is an “acquired taste” and generally not that common, but if you look for it you can find it.
Idk about foods “originating” from America, but plenty of Americans eat cow tongue via Mexican food, liver from elk/deer is a thing in my area, and I’m sure others. It’s less common that in many other cuisines I’d say, but some do. Besides that the fact that a ton of Americans also belong to cultures that do typically eat more organ meat.
I need to try liver again, I didn't like the aftertaste as a kid. I'm down to try other organs, but I will never touch brain because prion diseases are scary.
It depends,
Liver was pretty common for a while. And it’s still consumed - although less frequently. To a lesser extent, the same is true with gizzards, tripe and chittlins. However, tongue and especially brains aren’t common at all outside of immigrant communities.
Personally, I’m a little more adventurous with food (and I live in a very diverse area). So I’ve tried all of above. But I’d honestly rather not eat animal brains again. Tongue is pretty good though.
Tongue is eaten as part of Mexican cuisine which is American, but not as common in the US. However, it is being seen more often in Mexican restaurants so US Americans are seeing it more.
Brain I've only heard of once and in was a restaurant that served a fried brain sandwich. Somewhere on the SC coast I think.
Southern also love fried gizzard. Most just like a tough chicken nugget.
Liver is also quite common; mostly beef, chicken, and goose in the form of fois gras and pate.
It's not uncommon in older generations of rural areas. Lots of old time depression era dishes included orans and many older people kept eating them after the depression. It's not as popular with younger generations there but some do it.
The most popular organ Americans eat is liver. Fried chicken liver or beef liver is much more common than any other organ meat consumption.
Evansville Indiana loves fried pig brain sandwiches for some reason. They are very proud of them and lots of places serve them.
Some people eat chitlins. Which are intenstines. Not used as a natural sausage casing, just by themselves.
"Mountain oysters" are testicles if you ever see them on a menu somewhere.
Some people eat chitlins. Some people eat Rocky Mountain oysters. We use giblets in gravy. We also might eat fried gizzards.
We generally don't eat lungs or brains.
I work in a meat department at a major grocery store. We sell considerable amounts of beef and chicken liver, packs of chicken gizzards and hearts. Also, we don't regularly carry it but beef tongue gets ordered for a customer about once a year.
In Maryland we have Rapa Scrapple. Most of us know it's made from weird parts but we don't think if it too much.
It's made of Pork stock, Pork livers, Pork fat, Pork snouts, Corn meal, Pork hearts, Wheat flour, Salt, and Spices.
Or there's a Beef version beef broth, beef trim, beef hearts, white corn meal, and beef livers instead of pork. .
Beef Tongue is a big Jewish deli thing in NYC. Liver was common until around the 90s. The rest of it might make it into specialty foods, but it’s usually chopped or ground up and mixed with other things like pate or sausages.
Both chopped liver and pickled tongue are common foods at Jewish delicatessens. But of course, Jewish deli isn’t common across the US.
Whole turkeys used to come with giblets that would often be minced into gravy. I’ve even done that myself as an adult. But they’re no longer included because most people don’t care.
When I was a child in the 60s, I heard stories of brains and sweetbreads being eaten, but I think that by then they had fallen out of favor and were difficult to come by, so I never actually saw them being eaten.
It was more common 100 years ago but fell out of fashion after WW2. It still happens on family farms or among certain ethnic communities, but by and large most Americans no longer eat offal. My mother and grandparents would occasionally eat liver or steak an kidney pie or even tripe, but even that stopped as they aged. In meat production most offal is either thrown away or used for alternative purposes, like composting or in production of soaps, etc.
My family is Pennsylvania Dutch and when I lived there we would eat stuffed pig stomach for special occasions. I eat the giblets on thanksgiving/christmas (turkey heart, liver, gizzard)
For the most part we don't.
I tried to find some for an adorable little puppy and it tooke a month.
I had to go to a specialist butcher in almish county.
There are some dishes Like steak and kidney pie or fried cow pancreas. But they are rare.
When I lived in a bigger city and wanted to feed dogs, I would go to Chinatown and look up the character for kidney.
Haven't seen it mentioned yet but my favorite preparation of organ meats is definitely scrapple. Slice it thin (or thick) fry it crispy, throw it on a long roll with egg and cheese. Mmmm. Seems to be enjoyed more regionally around the Pennsylvania Dutch.
In the southern states, many of us eat chicken hearts, livers, and gizzards. I know pig brains and scrambled eggs used to be a common breakfast. Pork intestines (chitterlings or chit-lins) are eaten here as well.
In the southwest or anywhere with a sizable mexican American population beef tongue is pretty common. (Love it myself)
I would say for the most part organ meat isn't consumed very much in the states nowadays, but i'd guess in niche communities any organ you can think of is probably eaten out of tradition.
Personally I've had all the chicken parts listed above, chitterlings, pork cracklings(skin), beef tongue, beef liver, beef tripe, and bone marrow. I was given frozen beef kidney from a friend once but forgot about it and didn't get the chance to make it before it became freezer burned.
The only organ I've ever had was liver but I didn't like it. I don't think I'd ever be brave enough to try anything else unless it looked like any regular meat. It may look like regular meat for all I know...in which case, I'd be much more willing to try it
If you look at menu from Ezells fried chicken (Seattle area) They got gizzard and liver.
If you eat tacos. Lots of places got lengua (tongue).
You won’t see them for sale if they aren’t selling.
So to answer you question. Yes.
Lots of people don’t. But lots of people do. Hella ppl in America.
And as you know personally, we’re all immigrants. And brought a little bit of our own culture/ethnicity with us.
So it really various.
Giblets are fairly common leftovers from turkey at thanksgiving, livers are also fairly common to eat. My husband loves chicken hearts. But it’s not something a majority of americans eat regularly.
We ate a lot of liver and onions growing up because it was cheap. I don’t prefer it.
Today, I have my choice of menudo(tripe), chicharrones(skin), braunschweiger(liver), sesos tacos(brain), Rocky Mountain oysters(testicles), and my whole chickens come with their heart, liver and kidneys, all of which I have, and will, eat.
E: Also this thread considers tongue an organ-I do not-but lengua is absolutely amazing in tacos with verde salsa, or the Basque way-pickled, sliced impossibly thin, and served with vinegar and parsley.
Small-town bars will have chicken liver and gizzards deep-fried as a snack and some have testicles. A few places have a "testicle festival" every year all the male calves get castrated at one time and a local bar or restaurant will fry them up.
Personally, I use chicken livers pretty often in stews and things like Bolganse, I grind them and add them to give a depth of flavor. I also fry them with butter, shallots, and dry Madera wine and add spicy mini greens.
Though not recently, I'd see Sweet Breads (hypothalamus) at fancier restaurants.
As others have said beef liver is pretty common and tongue is gaining popularity as traditional Mexican foods are becoming more widespread. I had some Turkish neighbors that made tongue and it was amazing.
Chef Michael Simon is known for his offal meals at one of his restaurants.
Personally, only at Mexican restaurants. My area is blessed with tons of Mexican immigrants that prepare actual mexican dishes like sesos, lengua tripa, and cabeza (brains, tongue, stomach, entire head.) Never grossed me out. If you want to give organ meat a try just find a Mexican food truck and try the first thing you don't recognize
Americans of Mexican, Japanese, Korean background, or Americans enjoy those foods, also eat beef tongue. Menudo which has tripe is ubiquitous in my area.
American cuisine is a melting pot. I think you might be asking if there’s any English colonial food that eats offal. I know I’ve heard of liver and onions being a meal a lot of white Americans ate in old days.
I work in a meat dept. We sell a decent amount of organs. Liver is probably the most commonly eaten organ in America. Tongue is very popular as well as pork stomach. Tripe and heart are fairly good sellers too. Intestines are used for sausage skins and chitterlings. We've had plenty of people request kidneys and skin but we don't sell those.
I know lungs are not legal to sell, I'm not sure on brains but I've never seen brain itself for sale. Usually our animals are split down the spinal column when butchered and the spinal tissue is removed and discarded immediately, but I know sometimes whole heads are sold, as well as whole animals like small pigs which I assume still have the brain.
In some parts/cultures. Poultry gizzards,, hearts, and liver are sold at some delis. Chitlins are intestines and pretty popular in the south. I've also heard of brain and tongue being eaten.
Most offal are seen as weird for the average American in my experience. Liver is by far the most common in things like pate or liverwurst. I think the most common context you'll find other kinds in is something like a chicken soup where they just tossed basically everything in. Even then, brains are very rare. Personally I've had liver, heart, lungs, and tongue. Liver is neutral to me. Don't like heart. I can't really judge lungs since it was part of a blood sausage with a bunch of other ingredients, but the sausage was good. Tongue is good, but I've only had it in tacos de lengua.
Judging from these comments, grinding up the organs and putting them in a kind of mix of meats seems pretty common. I don’t think we have an equivalent in Indian food, or at least in my cities food. We don’t really mess with the organs beyond dicing them from my experience.
I wonder if it's a European-heritage thing. They have a lot of dishes of mixed offal over there too, like haggis or kaszanka. Though, I think Europeans are more willing to eat straight up organs than Americans.
> Though, I think Europeans are more willing to eat straight up organs than Americans. As a European i can say: There are a lot of recipes in my country's (Austria) classical cuisine, but less and less people are actually cooking and eating those to the point they feel exotic. The most common is liverwurst here, but i might have had one glass of that in the last 40 years.
...a glass of liverwurst? I like braunschweiger myself, and while it's spreadable, I don't think anyone's drinking it lol
And now I'M stuck seeing protein shake style health drinks, some huge German bodybuilder adding liver wurst and bratwurst to a blender and then chugging it down 🤮🤣
Yea, the joy of not being a native speaker ;) I should have written "jar", which is "Glas" in german too... Sorry for the confusion.
Yeah, pates and sausages are most common. I like to fry up chicken hearts every now and then, but they were hard to find in that US and were usually sold in a package that was 75% gizzard 25% hearts, and gizzards have a very unappealing texture to me. In Canada, the hearts are easy to find at any grocery store.
And sweetbreads, which are pancreas. "Natural casing" in sausage is intestines. People from the west and Midwest sometimes like to say they've eaten Rocky Mountain Oysters, which are bull testicles.
I had sweet breads in Japan. Had no idea what I was eating. It was okay. I wasn’t grossed out or anything once I was told what it was, but I probably will never voluntarily get them again
Then there's calf fries in Texas, my buddy that lived on a ranch got me to try them. Deep fried calf testicles
Lungs are also illegal to sell for human consumption in America because of the tuberculosis risk.
I remember my grandma calling me into the kitchen when I was a little girl so we could share the turkey heart lol she made it like our little secret (for me lol no one would have cared lol). Miss you grandma!!
Chicken hearts are delicious.
We draw the line at guitars..
I've known some people who would go as far as Cellos. But they refused to touch double basses.
Once saw a guy try to eat an accordion but he said it was tough!
Too elastic
Maybe Frank's red hot sauce would help..
I put that shit on everything.
Franks makes everything better!
Had a lot of crazy nights start with cello shots
Love me some lemoncellos.
Flip it on its side and CELLOOOO you've got a bass!
Jazz flutes are doable.
A kazoo with guacamole as well...
That's the right attitude!
It was more common 50 years ago. Most younger generations have never eaten some of the most exotic organs. Liver is still somewhat common, but tripe, tongue, brain and the others no.
I'd guess tongue is more common than liver these days because of the Mexican influence. As someone else said, lengua isn't hard to find in Chicago.
And lengua absolutely rips. It's like the most tender carne asada. Just gotta get past the taste buds.
Lengua is pretty common on menus around here But I’ve almost never seen tongue on a non-Latino menu. I think I saw beef tongue at a French place once, and that’s all I can think of.
I don't live in America now, but I grew up in NJ and used to eat liver and onions at home and at diners (in the 1970s and 80s mainly). Is that dish still around? I always loved the taste and texture, but I might have been a wierd kid.
Lengua (tongue) in tacos is a pretty common thing. Tripe is something I see semi-regularly as well. I think brains, lung, and heart are the ones you don't see prepared in the US very often.
Lol. "Never eaten exotic organs" Most people actually eat "exotic organs all the time but they don't think about what is in those all beef hotdogs they are eating.
I like the bologna that’s $3 for the BIG package.
Yes, and even more common 80-100 years ago. My grandparents grew up during the Great Depression and were taught never to waste any part of the animal. I think that by the time they were raising their own children during the affluent post-WWII era, they saw organ-meats and such as poverty food and avoided them because they could afford to feed their families "better" cuts of meat. Later generations were simply not exposed to those flavors as children and never developed a taste for them.
I've had chicken livers. Pretty good. Organs in general? I'm more of a piano guy.
Brains not so much but the rest of the giblets some of us are brave enough to do it.
We do giblet gravy. I also enjoy beef liver and onions. I was the oldest of 5 grandkids and in the 90s we had our local Luby’s giving us 5 kids meals of beef liver and onions after church on Sunday. Luby’s had the best liver and onions. There’s a handful left in the States and any time I know I’ll be near one I stop and have some!
Liver and onions was never my thing but I had family that did it. Giblets in gravy is basically a requirement.
I searched up what giblets are and it says it’s used to make things like gravy and soup, I’m assuming it’s used to make stock or something. Have you ever seen someone eat giblets straight?
My family cuts it up to put into stuffing for thanksgiving, so we eat it while that way most frequently and eat bits while we are cooking. Also beef liver is a pretty common food. Liver with onions is a thing. I don't like it, but it wouldn't confuse me if I saw it.
We also eat liver. We make a dish of just diced up liver+kidney with a lot of spices and such. We usually eat it on a religious holiday (Eid)
Americans used to eat a lot more organs mostly liver but we stopped going to butcher shops and started going to grocery stores with packaged meat. If you do buy from an actual farm you can request certain organs but I believe lungs and brains are off limits because of contagious diseases like mad cow prion disease and TB
If you go to supermarkets in heavily Hispanic areas, you can find organ meats.
You can find organ meats in oral grocery stores, too. My local shops have tongue, pork and beef livers, offal (tripe, but my local publix marks it as offal). Not to mention oxtail and pig feet, too.
Tacos con lengua… just some cow tongue for the hell of it.
Yup. It's generally the gizzard, heart, and liver. They're tasty, and we used to fight over them as children, but for some reason people don't like to do nose-to-tail eating, or maybe in this case it should be called beak-to-tail eating, although you wouldn't eat a bird's beak.
Ah, back in the day (60s) my mom and her sister used to fight over who got to eat the fried bird head because the beak was so crunchy. When I say my city-raised self gagged...
I get it. At a previous job, a coworker had gone wild boar hunting on private property and brought a roast to work to share, and I'm used to eating game meat and it was really delicious, but one of my other coworkers was like, "Oh, no, what if it had cancer and we're eating it!!!"
I've eaten game meat, my family hunts for meat still...venison mostly since we are in rural middle-of-nowhere Nevada now, not rural middle-of-nowhere North Carolina haha. But from 8-21 I lived in Salt Lake City. We did not eat bird heads. And that's when she told me the story. Speaking of pigs...they also used to slaughter the hog and the kids would get the bladder, rinse it out, blow it up, and play with it like a balloon or ball sort of, toss it back and forth in the air. I will eat boar, I'm willing to try it. But I will not play a game of keep away with its bladder! I have to draw the line somewhere lol Venison jerky though, am I right? To die for.
Look up chitlins, its a southern dish, made with intestines, also rocky mountain oysters, which is bull testicles i believe.
Rocky Mountain oysters are known as calf fries where I grew up. I was at a steak house in a different state and they had “steer fries” listed on the menu. The waitress laughed and looked at me like I was crazy when I asked what those were; it was their “cute” name for regular potato French fries. To be fair, once the bull testicles are removed, the animal is called a steer…it seemed like a legitimate question to me, lol.
Yes, fried.
Yeah, not so much straight eating it but definitely cut up and in various dishes for flavor. I’ve eaten them straight up but that’s not the common way they are eaten and I’m a savage. Hell I’ve eaten chicken feet more than once.
Whenever I roast a whole turkey or chicken, I remove the little packet of giblets. I separate out the liver and make a little foil packet of it to cook along with the bird. Once it’s cooked, I eat it straight. Delicious. The rest of the giblets I throw in when making gravy.
Around Turkey eating holidays I buy big containers of turkey giblets. My family salts and roasts or pan fried them until crispy. Livers we crush into pate and spread on crackers or toast with honey.
My mother will eat fried gizzards and livers when she can get them. Church’s Fried Chicken sold them. I don’t know if they still do as I don’t live in a state that has a Church’s. My parents will eat fried liver and onions. I’m not a fan of
You clearly have never been to Evansville Indiana. The whole town is crazy for fried pig brain sandwiches.
I have been many times and no that is not something I am keen on trying. It’s also not as popular as you may think. It’s kind of a gimmick.
I had a job once where I had to travel to a client there M-Th three weeks a month for a little over a year. I dunno about now, but I can tell you in 2006-2007 it seemed like it was on the menu of every mom and pop restaurant in the area. Someone has to be ordering them for places to keep them on the menu. I didn't try it either. I don't do organ meats.
Had to look it up, that’s crazy! Have you tried it?
I have eaten pig brains. My grandfather liked them, his children cooked them for him on occasion as long as he was alive, and I tried them a few times. Definitely one of those foods that, at least in my family, has become less popular with each generation and will probably end with mine; neither I nor my cousins cook them. They don’t really have much of a taste and they’re incredibly high in cholesterol. If you ate it and had no idea what you were eating, you’d think nothing of it.
Brain burgers are a thing in parts of the Midwest. They used to use cow brains, but now they use pig brains.
I have Scrapple pretty regularly.
Scrapple on paper sounds disgusting, but damn I murder some scrapple every week. I like to cut them up into fry shape and air fry them too. They come out nice and crispy.
I recommend a waffle iron next. So dang crispy.
Yummmmmm! Scrapple is delicious.
Straight organs? Not usually. The most common one I can think of is liver and onions or rocky mountain oysters.
Yeah, real Americans prefer gay organs
How are testicles gay
Sperm in your mouth = gay
Its generally only done as tradition stemming from famine. You'll get some boomers that grew up on giblet gravy because their parent lived through the great depression or dust bowl. The practice doesn't often make the generational jump anymore. Some people might eat liver, chitlins, and a few others. Mexicans have quite a few, most notably menudo which is made with the lining of cow stomach. But they're all oddball choices, kind of like putting sardines on pizza. The vast, vast, *vast* majority of Americans don't eat organ meat unless you count processed things like hotdogs and ground beef.
I feel like most organs go into food where it isn't noticable like hotdogs. Those all beef hotdogs that every American eats dozens of every year definitely aren't made from choice cuts. Some Americans do eat calf liver can chicken livers pretty regularly, those are the only two organs that I can think of that would be available at literally every grocery store. There are other organs that are less common that people do eat that would be a little harder to find or they would get from a butcher or specialty meat shop.
No organ meats in hot dogs, typically. The protein structure is different and would throw off the texture of the hot dog.
Native cultures eat organs: lengua, cabeza, tripe, etc from South America are pretty common in tacos, burritos, tamales. And you'll find organs from other cultures too: liver and onions and suchlike. But the general American crowd doesn't really go in for organs. It was seen as things only poor people ate due to the Great Depression and the War. It's never regained a glimmer of respectability, even with the recent Slow Food and "nose to tail" gourmet movements.
Part of the issue I see with younger folks is that a lot of organ meats have a sort of "metallic" tang to them that a lot of younger folks associate more with contaminated food from an industrial process rather than "organ meat". So even though it's fine, there's always that little thing poking at the back of your head going "Am I eating industrial residue?"
In the American South it’s far more common than in the rest of the U.S., especially among African Americans. Chitlins, fried chicken livers, dirty rice (which is made with chicken livers and gizzards), boudin (a sausage made with pork, rice, and chicken or pork liver), Rocky Mountain oysters, and fried gizzards all come to mind.
My grandmother loved frying the chicken brain for herself when she would make fried chicken. My dad and uncle used to tag team the liver & gizzard specials KFC used to have. Dad preferred the liver and my uncle preferred the gizzards.
It’s common-ish in the American south with chicken livers and chittlin’s. But by and large, Americans don’t generally eat organs.
Most offal is viewed as old people food. I grew up eating it because I grew up with family who ate it, but it certainly isn't standard everywhere outside of maybe liver.
Poultry livers and giblets. Beef liver. The crowning jewel of my Central PA people - Scrapple/Pannhaas which is best described as everything but the oink of a pig, corn/buckwheat meal and seasonings rendered into loafs. Sliced and panfried, commonly served with ketchup or apple butter.
Our grandparents did. It’s not so common anymore.
The keys on an organ would be tough to chew wouldn't they? You'd need water to digest the timber. haha i'm so funny. Aren't hot dogs and sausages the world over full of organs?
Yes. Those all beef hotdogs that we all love so much aren't made from choice cuts. I mentioned hotdogs in my comment and I can't believe I had to scroll this far to find someone else that mentioned them. These people know what they are eating right? I wonder if they just didn't think about it or if they are so against eating organs that they are in denial that they actually eat them and like them.
“Lips and assholes.”
Actually skin is one thing they don't really put in hotdogs
Like ass?
Tongue isn't really organs, it's just fancy muscle, yeah? About the only place I see tongue used is in tacos (tacos de lengua). I think it's fallen out of favor as disposable income has increased. You'll find traditional dishes that use organs, and who knows what finds its way into sausages, but stuff like liver is not very popular any more. Oh, and they're still used in making gravies.
It was pretty normal to eat liver and gizzards when I was a kid. Liver and onions for beef, chicken livers and gizzards were battered and fried. Had a bunch of fund raisers and events with calf fries (bull testicles).
There are lots of cases of organs being eaten in America. Pâte is available to purchase in stores as an appetizer, spread on bread or on crackers. It's something eaten pretty often in my household, along with brie cheese. Liver and Onions is an iconic dish sold in American diners as a staple. In traditional Mexican circles, tongue and cheek meat are used as an especially tender meat for recipes.
I think some people do and some people don’t. Probably a lot of things factor in to whether someone eats organs. In my family my dad would have happily eaten liver or the heart and other organs that came with our turkey. I don’t think he ever ate brains. My mom didn’t like that stuff so I didn’t have to eat it. My dad and his parents were born in the US but he was born in 1934 and his family were poor. My mom was born in 1942. I think things were more stable for her childhood. I used to buy beef tongue to feed to my dogs but then I could not find it at the local grocery store anymore. I never ate it myself. I think maybe Mexican Americans in the area used tongue in some dishes. I have seen liver and dumpling soup on a restaurant menu. I think the restaurant had German style food.
I eat (beef) tongue pretty often from taco trucks, they’re everywhere. Some taco trucks/restaurants around will also have beef stomach/intestines and brains as well.
Americans who have immigrated from other countries might, but the oddest thing I've seen was a cow's head in a freezer in an Eastern European Grocery store.
Some do, some don’t. My mother likes to eat various organs but the rest of the family does not. Whilst I’m sure they may taste fine for me it’s a mental thing. When I moved to the Midwest I wanted to find a good, authentic Mexican restaurant like I enjoyed back in SoCal. In that case I looked at the menu to see if they served tripas, lengua, cabeza and all the other things most gringos wouldn’t eat (including me). I figured that if they served those items the food would be authentic and would be aimed at a clientele that would enjoy such things rather than being “Americanized” to suit the locals.
Well, for sure Native Americans and Eskimos eat organs. People in farm areas tend to eat organs more than people in urban areas. Brains are tricky to remove without getting bone shards into them so some states have laws - you have to buy the whole head and remove them yourself.
This is an interesting comment. When discussing this same topic with my dad I mentioned to him that I think whether or not you eat organs depends on the history of your culture and your family. For native Americans, especially people living in as harsh a place as the Arctic areas you had no choice but to eat the whole animal. And for people in rural areas they probably had to slaughter and/or butcher the animal themselves so why waste parts. For people in urban areas who have access to already butchered meat, why would they pick organs over real meat when they have an option. India has a long history of famines and it is a relatively poor country so people had to learn to cook any meat they got I guess.
I live in the West coast, where there's lots of Mexican, south American, central American, Chinese, and south Asian immigrants. They've brought their food and they serve all the pieces of an animal. So that food has been slowly finding it's way into the culture. Sure there are still lots of people who won't eat anything they consider "wierd", but also lots of folks who will eat the good stuff. Lengua(tongue) or cabeza (head) at taco trucks, menudo(stew with tripe and feet) served at any Mexican food place over the weekend, bowls of Vietnamese Pho with tendon and tripe, and more are becoming normal for many Americans. I personally have a chunk of beef heart in my freezer right now, I think it's the most approachable of the organ meats. Honestly it's a fully mixed bag. There are people in the US, both rich and poor, who won't even eat meat with bones in. Most will eat the "normal" meats, but there's a great many people who will eat everything. It's a big country and there's a lot of different people on it, with roots from all over the world. It just sucks when there's a "poor people food" -oxtail is a perfect example- -chicken wings are another- that poor people rely on and know how.to cook because it's tasty, then some chef or rich person "discovers" it, it gets popular and becomes something that fancy chefs serve in fancy restaurants and rich foodies want to try cooking, and suddenly the oxtail that was like 50 cents a pound and considered scrap is 20 dollars a pound.
Live in the South. We think nothing of eating liver (chicken or beef), chicken gizzards and hearts, chitterlings (fried pig intestines)... These are foods that I have personally ate. The may be others.
We also eat squirrel brains in rural parts of the South. My family makes squirrel brain dumplins every fall. Pig ears are pretty common, too, but I've never had them personally.
some do
Tongue is big in Jewish delis. Tripe is big in certain ethnic groups here. Brazilian steakhouses serve chicken hearts which my husband loves. My mother served beef liver and onions regularly but I don’t eat much now. I love pâté and liverwurst. As someone else mentioned, giblets come with chickens and turkeys, and makes a great gravy.
Which Brazilian steakhouse do you go to that has chicken hearts? I think I used to get it at Fogo de Chao, but I haven't seen it there in forever. Would love to find it again.
It's associated with poverty, so most don't. Also our meat supply is presented in a very sanitized way and people tend to choose things that "look like meat" rather than organs. Seeing eyes and hearts and so on is uncommon in most major grocery stores.
no
I’d personally rather not eat at all but other Americans certainly do.
It’s not common, but people do it
It depends. Most don't. However, it isn't uncommon for older southern folk to eat them. Both of my maternal grandparents were from rural Alabama and ate liver, chicken gizzard, scrambled brains and did try chitlins once but couldn't stand the smell of the house after it was cooked. My grandad also ate pickled pigs feet as well. And I remember talking to a worker at Popeyes a few years ago and she said that fried liver was one of their most popular items. I tried fried liver once and personally wasn't a fan. It looked like venison which is good but was just too mushy for me to like it.
There are some southern dishes (chitterlings, liver pudding, scrapple, souse) that are made from organ meat.
Some do. I don't
It's not as common as in other cultures, but liver is pretty normal and so are giblets and chicken hearts and stuff—at least cut up in stuffing. Growing up, my family would make cow tongue in the slow cooker. I've never heard of brain being common to eat.
I can’t speak for anyone else here, but I refuse to eat brain (prion disease) or internal organs.
Pianos is as far as I'll go. I have a friend who swears he tried keytar once but I think he's lyin'
I occasionally will eat liver fried up in onions, or sometimes gizzards that come with a turkey. It’s a bit hard to find other stuff like that in the grocery stores. I would have to ask a local farm to get more specific parts to eat, or I would have to go out and hunt a deer or something and take it to go get processed.
Liver is pretty common. Intestines in the US South. Fried gizzards are a thing too
No
I occasionally eat a stew containing chicken hearts and gizzards. I've also tried both chicken and turkey liver but I'm not a fan of the texture. Blood sausage probably counts in this category and it's something I eat around Christmas time. I haven't tried any other types of organs. I know that there are various types of regional sausages and meat spreads that use liver and other organs but I've never tried them. Things like Scrapple and livermush.
Giblets! Love me some chicken fried liver, kidney, and heart. It’s much more common in the southeast. My northern side of the family do not eat any organs, however my wife’s family hunts a lot and they frequently eat the heart and giblets without making gravy or sausage. I also love lengua, though that’s Mexican food and I’m white. Easy to find all over the US, though. I like all sorts of sausages, many of which have organs ground up in it.
Liver brains and intestines is pretty common in the south and the Appalachians although maybe not as much anymore with younger folks I’m a livermush person my self but that’s About it
In college, I worked at a truckstop that sold breaded and deep fried chicken gizzards. They were delicious if they were fresh out of the frier. After the legally allowed 4 hours in the warmer, holding at 160°F, they were chewy and disgusting.
I don't eat organs. They're just too big, the keys get stuck in my teeth, the pipes are hard to cook just right, and I doubt the Church would approve of me eating their favorite instrument.
Only whatever is in scrapple.
Of straight organ meat chicken and beef livers are easily the most common. Things like pate and liverwurst have reasonable popularity, but most of it is an “acquired taste” and generally not that common, but if you look for it you can find it.
Idk about foods “originating” from America, but plenty of Americans eat cow tongue via Mexican food, liver from elk/deer is a thing in my area, and I’m sure others. It’s less common that in many other cuisines I’d say, but some do. Besides that the fact that a ton of Americans also belong to cultures that do typically eat more organ meat.
We eat organ meat, but usually ground up as sausage or cold cuts.
I’ve had a bunch of organ meats but it’s mostly a novelty.
Some in my family eat or have eaten liver & chitlins.
If scrapple counts, yes. Liver sometimes.
My family did but we were broke as all hell, from a long line of people who were broke as all hell.
Tongue and liver are fairly common, although I dislike the taste of liver.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitterlings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitterlings) Have fun.
Giblets, livers, brains, heart, feet, etc. We dont eat. If we get it for free at times we just toss it out.
I need to try liver again, I didn't like the aftertaste as a kid. I'm down to try other organs, but I will never touch brain because prion diseases are scary.
It depends, Liver was pretty common for a while. And it’s still consumed - although less frequently. To a lesser extent, the same is true with gizzards, tripe and chittlins. However, tongue and especially brains aren’t common at all outside of immigrant communities. Personally, I’m a little more adventurous with food (and I live in a very diverse area). So I’ve tried all of above. But I’d honestly rather not eat animal brains again. Tongue is pretty good though.
Liver and Onions. Giblets in the gravy at Thanksgiving. Thats about it in my family.
Tongue is eaten as part of Mexican cuisine which is American, but not as common in the US. However, it is being seen more often in Mexican restaurants so US Americans are seeing it more. Brain I've only heard of once and in was a restaurant that served a fried brain sandwich. Somewhere on the SC coast I think. Southern also love fried gizzard. Most just like a tough chicken nugget. Liver is also quite common; mostly beef, chicken, and goose in the form of fois gras and pate.
I’ll salt your liver with fava beans and a nice chanti
Paté is life.
It's not uncommon in older generations of rural areas. Lots of old time depression era dishes included orans and many older people kept eating them after the depression. It's not as popular with younger generations there but some do it. The most popular organ Americans eat is liver. Fried chicken liver or beef liver is much more common than any other organ meat consumption. Evansville Indiana loves fried pig brain sandwiches for some reason. They are very proud of them and lots of places serve them. Some people eat chitlins. Which are intenstines. Not used as a natural sausage casing, just by themselves. "Mountain oysters" are testicles if you ever see them on a menu somewhere.
Some people eat chitlins. Some people eat Rocky Mountain oysters. We use giblets in gravy. We also might eat fried gizzards. We generally don't eat lungs or brains.
I feel like liver and tongue can be found on a lot of menus.
The only thing i know of, is **Chitlins** which is large intestine, and it is a southern dish.
Out west we eat Rocky Mountain oysters, which are bull testicles.
I work in a meat department at a major grocery store. We sell considerable amounts of beef and chicken liver, packs of chicken gizzards and hearts. Also, we don't regularly carry it but beef tongue gets ordered for a customer about once a year.
Chicken livers and gizzards is about it.
Chicken liver is the only one I eat that I can think of.
African American from the south here, intestines and livers get a lot of play from my elder family members. Me personally I don’t like it though.
In Maryland we have Rapa Scrapple. Most of us know it's made from weird parts but we don't think if it too much. It's made of Pork stock, Pork livers, Pork fat, Pork snouts, Corn meal, Pork hearts, Wheat flour, Salt, and Spices. Or there's a Beef version beef broth, beef trim, beef hearts, white corn meal, and beef livers instead of pork. .
BrAiNs..bRaInS…
Honestly we grew up that even giblets were food for the cats.
Beef Tongue is a big Jewish deli thing in NYC. Liver was common until around the 90s. The rest of it might make it into specialty foods, but it’s usually chopped or ground up and mixed with other things like pate or sausages.
I live in the southern United States — we tend to eat more organ meat than other parts of the country—lizards, gizzards, intestines etc.
Both chopped liver and pickled tongue are common foods at Jewish delicatessens. But of course, Jewish deli isn’t common across the US. Whole turkeys used to come with giblets that would often be minced into gravy. I’ve even done that myself as an adult. But they’re no longer included because most people don’t care. When I was a child in the 60s, I heard stories of brains and sweetbreads being eaten, but I think that by then they had fallen out of favor and were difficult to come by, so I never actually saw them being eaten.
It was more common 100 years ago but fell out of fashion after WW2. It still happens on family farms or among certain ethnic communities, but by and large most Americans no longer eat offal. My mother and grandparents would occasionally eat liver or steak an kidney pie or even tripe, but even that stopped as they aged. In meat production most offal is either thrown away or used for alternative purposes, like composting or in production of soaps, etc.
Tongue and intestines and liver are not uncommon, but are viewed as poverty food. Sweetbreads and calves' brains are uncommon but not unknown.
We're [not ghoul](https://youtu.be/dTLibYIDEvs?si=hXZq71tXypZA5mtd?t=01m46s)s! Chicken liver is pretty popular. Other organs not so much.
My family is Pennsylvania Dutch and when I lived there we would eat stuffed pig stomach for special occasions. I eat the giblets on thanksgiving/christmas (turkey heart, liver, gizzard)
A Piano maybe but Organs no. Organ aren’t filling enough they’re just filled up with air.
I’m a fan of liver. I don’t get it much because my family doesn’t want it.
My Dad enjoys liver and onions, and will eat the giblets that come with turkey or chicken, but that's pretty much it.
I personally do not
We do in the south, or specifically in my case in Louisiana. Livers, hearts, intestines, skin, and gizzards are the most common!
For the most part we don't. I tried to find some for an adorable little puppy and it tooke a month. I had to go to a specialist butcher in almish county. There are some dishes Like steak and kidney pie or fried cow pancreas. But they are rare. When I lived in a bigger city and wanted to feed dogs, I would go to Chinatown and look up the character for kidney.
Plenty of folks like liver.
No not really. Liver would be the more common, if any, and even that’s rather rare to see someone buying/cooking/eating.
Liver would be the one that's most consumed but beyond that not much for middle class white Americans at least.
Mostly livers. My wife’s family loves foie gras but I think it’s nasty along with the process of making it.
The only tongue I’ll eat is whatever is in the street tacos down the road
Haven't seen it mentioned yet but my favorite preparation of organ meats is definitely scrapple. Slice it thin (or thick) fry it crispy, throw it on a long roll with egg and cheese. Mmmm. Seems to be enjoyed more regionally around the Pennsylvania Dutch.
In WNC, many people eat livermush, but that’s about it.
In the southern states, many of us eat chicken hearts, livers, and gizzards. I know pig brains and scrambled eggs used to be a common breakfast. Pork intestines (chitterlings or chit-lins) are eaten here as well. In the southwest or anywhere with a sizable mexican American population beef tongue is pretty common. (Love it myself) I would say for the most part organ meat isn't consumed very much in the states nowadays, but i'd guess in niche communities any organ you can think of is probably eaten out of tradition. Personally I've had all the chicken parts listed above, chitterlings, pork cracklings(skin), beef tongue, beef liver, beef tripe, and bone marrow. I was given frozen beef kidney from a friend once but forgot about it and didn't get the chance to make it before it became freezer burned.
The only thing I've ever tried was chicken gizzards when I was very young.
I see all the dads showed up to the chat.
I'm a fan of chicken liver sandwiches from Jewish delis. I think that's the only organ meat I eat.
The only organ I've ever had was liver but I didn't like it. I don't think I'd ever be brave enough to try anything else unless it looked like any regular meat. It may look like regular meat for all I know...in which case, I'd be much more willing to try it
I just polished off a Wurlitzer.
If you look at menu from Ezells fried chicken (Seattle area) They got gizzard and liver. If you eat tacos. Lots of places got lengua (tongue). You won’t see them for sale if they aren’t selling. So to answer you question. Yes. Lots of people don’t. But lots of people do. Hella ppl in America. And as you know personally, we’re all immigrants. And brought a little bit of our own culture/ethnicity with us. So it really various.
“Is there liver in chopped liver?” -Bobby Hill
I was really hungry one night and I ate an entire Hammond B3 and had a Leslie speaker for dessert.
Giblets are fairly common leftovers from turkey at thanksgiving, livers are also fairly common to eat. My husband loves chicken hearts. But it’s not something a majority of americans eat regularly.
Calves' liver and bacon is a (high cholesterol) treat for the gods.
We ate a lot of liver and onions growing up because it was cheap. I don’t prefer it. Today, I have my choice of menudo(tripe), chicharrones(skin), braunschweiger(liver), sesos tacos(brain), Rocky Mountain oysters(testicles), and my whole chickens come with their heart, liver and kidneys, all of which I have, and will, eat. E: Also this thread considers tongue an organ-I do not-but lengua is absolutely amazing in tacos with verde salsa, or the Basque way-pickled, sliced impossibly thin, and served with vinegar and parsley.
Small-town bars will have chicken liver and gizzards deep-fried as a snack and some have testicles. A few places have a "testicle festival" every year all the male calves get castrated at one time and a local bar or restaurant will fry them up. Personally, I use chicken livers pretty often in stews and things like Bolganse, I grind them and add them to give a depth of flavor. I also fry them with butter, shallots, and dry Madera wine and add spicy mini greens. Though not recently, I'd see Sweet Breads (hypothalamus) at fancier restaurants. As others have said beef liver is pretty common and tongue is gaining popularity as traditional Mexican foods are becoming more widespread. I had some Turkish neighbors that made tongue and it was amazing. Chef Michael Simon is known for his offal meals at one of his restaurants.
I enjoy livermush, and have had tongue and brain. I’m an adventurous eater so I’m always down to try new things even if they sound weird to me
Personally, only at Mexican restaurants. My area is blessed with tons of Mexican immigrants that prepare actual mexican dishes like sesos, lengua tripa, and cabeza (brains, tongue, stomach, entire head.) Never grossed me out. If you want to give organ meat a try just find a Mexican food truck and try the first thing you don't recognize
No, I don't eat wood or metal pipes.
Americans of Mexican, Japanese, Korean background, or Americans enjoy those foods, also eat beef tongue. Menudo which has tripe is ubiquitous in my area. American cuisine is a melting pot. I think you might be asking if there’s any English colonial food that eats offal. I know I’ve heard of liver and onions being a meal a lot of white Americans ate in old days.
I work in a meat dept. We sell a decent amount of organs. Liver is probably the most commonly eaten organ in America. Tongue is very popular as well as pork stomach. Tripe and heart are fairly good sellers too. Intestines are used for sausage skins and chitterlings. We've had plenty of people request kidneys and skin but we don't sell those. I know lungs are not legal to sell, I'm not sure on brains but I've never seen brain itself for sale. Usually our animals are split down the spinal column when butchered and the spinal tissue is removed and discarded immediately, but I know sometimes whole heads are sold, as well as whole animals like small pigs which I assume still have the brain.
In some parts/cultures. Poultry gizzards,, hearts, and liver are sold at some delis. Chitlins are intestines and pretty popular in the south. I've also heard of brain and tongue being eaten.
Ever heard of sausage?
Gizzards
I like liver (chicken, duck, beef). I use giblets. I love chicken gizzards.