Kidney, Liver, Other Organ Meats: Once a Staple, Now Avoided

Thursday, April 1, 2004

Page 15

REMINISCING (Column)

Kidney, Liver, Other Organ Meats: Once a Staple, Now Avoided

By ROGER M. GRACE

Veal chops and lamb chops from the butcher shop in the 1950s were different from the ones sold nowadays. Stuck to each loin chop, just below the filet, was a slice of the kidney.

I haven’t seen that since the early 1970s when I bought some veal/kidney chops at a market that’s no longer there. Seeing those chops was like a throwback to my childhood.

Chops with attached kidney are no longer available, at least in this vicinage. In fact, lamb kidneys, once commonly found in markets and on restaurant menus, have become a rarity and, when located, generally are frozen or are defrosted.

They can still be purchased fresh at a few Armenian markets. That tip is not apt to be received with particular enthusiasm by those too young to remember when lamb kidneys were a conventional dish, who have probably never tasted them, and have no interest in doing so.

I doubt that plunking money in a chain of steak and kidney pie stands would be a promising investment.

I remember when my mother made fried chicken. It was a treat to be the one who got the heart or the gizzard. Today, however, organ meats are simply not in vogue; cold pasta and hummus are. KFC stands no longer sell fried giblets.

Calves’ liver and bacon or calves’ liver and onions are seen on menus with decreasing frequency. That’s understandable. Aside from changing tastes (and concerns over the high cholesterol content in organ foods), the preparation of that item requires close attention. Cooked too short a time, there’s a “raw liver” taste that’s not palatable to humans (though denizens of zoos wouldn’t balk), and if cooked too long, well, the liver is dried out and ruined.

Close attention to the preparation of individual plates of food is no longer the norm, with dishes routinely being cooked in advance and warmed when ordered. (My wife and I went to India’s Oven on Beverly Boulevard recently—to our regret. The food tasted like re-heated left-overs.)

Calves’ liver is simply not a dish that’s subject to fast-foods treatment.

“Mixed grill” for decades described a combination plate that customarily included calves’ liver or a lamb kidney, generally teamed with a lamb chop (or perhaps a beef filet) and bacon or sausage.

That dish has become a culinary anachronism.

The term “mixed grill” is still found on menus, but it’s apt to be a modernized (i.e., bastardized) version, including chicken or fish—and certainly without liver or kidney.

An omelette with chicken livers does not sound appetizing to me. That’s probably because I’m not particularly fond of chicken livers. However, that was once a dish often included on menus, including lunch and dinner menus.

For example…the 46-cent Plate Luncheon served from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Globe Coffee Shop at 1317 East Seventh in Los Angeles (now site of the Skid Row Housing Trust) on June 1, 1937 featured a choice of entrées—which included an omelette with chicken livers—with puree of lima bean soup or chilled tomato juice, along with dessert and coffee, tea, milk or buttermilk. (Buttermilk is another remnant of past food tastes.) On the dinner menu that day was “Shirred Eggs With Chicken Livers and Giblets” which, with accompaniments, cost half a dollar.

(A “shirred” egg, also a virtually extinct food, is simply one that’s baked. It’s similar to a poached egg, but is firmer.)

Around that time, in Los Angeles, the Vendrome sold an omelette with chicken livers for 95 cents; the Merry-Go-Round Cafe at 345 South Hill Street offered scrambled eggs with chicken livers for 25 cents; and Melody Lane’s 75-cent dinner included a choice of entree, one of which was shirred eggs with sautéed chicken livers and mushrooms.

Lamb and veal sweetbreads are delicious, if properly prepared. Boiled in the sauce, however, they get mushy.

Nowadays, it’s rare to find them on a menu. Thymus glands (sounds horrible, but that’s what sweetbreads are) are far from a trendy food.

My wife has scads of Italian cookbooks but we’ve never found one with the recipe for a memorable regional dish we encountered in Firenze (Florence). It was a fresh pea soup with sweetbreads.

If you mention “sweetbreads” to someone under 30, the image conjured up would probably be that of a loaf of bread that’s sweet, like Hawaiian bread made with pineapple juice.

One year, a few minutes before the annual meeting of the Half-Norwegian (on the Mother’s Side) American Bar Assn. commenced, I complained to the waiter in charge that the buffet was supposed to include headcheese (jellied tongue, heart, etc.), and didn’t. Indignant, the waiter pointed to assemblage of brie, camembert, and other dairy cheeses. What more, he evidently thought, could I have possibly expected?