Euphemistically Speaking…

There is no such thing as a Chilean Sea Bass. It is a Patagonian Toothfish, and it ain’t pretty.

Prunes are a victim of the success of marketers who wanted us to associate them too much with bowel movements; now they are known as Dried Plums. Which is what they in fact, are.

You might think using Rapeseed Oil is politically incorrect because of the whole “rape” thing. So you use Canola Oil instead with no qualms. It’s the same thing.

A Chinese Gooseberry might sound a tad too exotic, but you’d eat a Kiwi, right? Well, it’s not all that exotic if you’re in New Zealand, which is where it grows.

Would you like some Dolphinfish? No? Why ever not? How about some Mahi Mahi instead?

You’ve probably had some delicious Slimehead. You won’t have called it that, however. You’d have asked for some Orange Roughy.

I expect you enjoy steaks, chops and ribs too. Yes, ribs.

There is a significant connection between how we perceive a food and our physical response to it — and what something is called plays an important part in that. Thus it is that we have a long tradition of simply changing the names of foods to ease them into the public maw if the original name proves unappealing.

Sometimes there’s a battle between those who want all foods described literally (high fructose corn syrup) and those with a more poetic bent to mask the truth with prettier words (corn sugar).

During the 1940s, there was a great push to call offal “Variety Meats” in order to persuade housewives on a budget to find new sources of protein. Cookbooks were the front line in this effort, but as the Cutco Cook Book shows, the authors / illustrators didn’t really get it. On the one hand the chapter is Variety Meats; and thereafter follows the bits and bobs in all their anatomically-named glory. At least in the days when most folks actually ate offal because they had no choice the language was more sensitive to this dilemma. A sheep’s lungs were called “lights.”

Surely there can be another word for “brains”?

(Note also the unfortunate illustration that probably means to depict three chefs dancing with excitement about the prospect of cooking offal, but instead appear to be fending off swarms of flies attracted to it.)

Cutco Cook Book, Margaret Mitchell, 1956

Also from this book: Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road? 

Faggots

Faggots have long been a staple of English cuisine. As a very down to earth dish, made from the remnants of butchery, it is perhaps understandable that here they are made to sound more fancy by calling them “Belgian,” though there is nothing in the recipe to suggest that there is anything foreign about them.

Calling any food item a “faggot” now would probably seem to many to be particular unsavory, given the more contemporary and derogatory use of the word to describe homosexuals. Neither of these two terms have any connection to the other faggot — that of a bundle of sticks, which has been a term in use since the 13^th century.

 A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, Charles Elmé Francatelli, The Scolar Press, 1852

Also from this book: Mutton Chops, What Pluck!. Heads, Plucks, Shanks and Scrag-Ends, Take A Deep Breath..., Stuffed Up, Bee Stings, How To Make The Most Of Your Pig Before It Is Killed, How (Not) To Make Coffee

Have a Heart

Before 1935 it was impossible for you to have a heart attack. Not because such things did not exist — but because they weren’t called that. People only started calling them heart attacks in 1935. Of course, they might have been referring to this recipe, which some might consider an attack of hearts. You might think that people ate more hearts back then, but you’d be wrong: you probably eat just as many hearts now, only in hot dogs rather than stuffed whole ones like these.

Before the 1930s, you could not be accused of being a “bleeding heart” because before that the phrase referred to a flowering plant, rather than an excess of sympathy. Being shot through the heart would certainly cause excessive bleeding (and also death), but it wouldn’t necessarily give love a bad name unless it appears in a song by Bon Jovi. Love has long been thought to reside in the heart, the heart itself represented by the symbol <3. Some people love Bon Jovi. Some <3 NY.

Literally speaking, love cannot lie bleeding, though there is a plant (amaranthus caudatus) whose common name is love-lies-bleeding. Its flowers look like spilled guts. You’d get spilled guts if the person shooting you through the heart aimed too low. Cupid, a cherub, is typically held responsible for shooting an arrow through lover’s hearts in a grotesque parody of reverse conception in which the product of the lover’s love results in a baby. Cupid is the Roman counterpart of Eros, the Greek god of love. Eros spelled backward is “sore,” which is what you’d be if someone shot an arrow through your chest.

If you are in love, you might say your heart is full — bursting with joy — as opposed to being stuffed full of cooked ham and breadcrumbs, as in this recipe. If your heart is stuffed full of ham and breadcrumbs, there is something grievously wrong with your digestive tract and you should see a doctor immediately. While waiting, you may be subjected to muzak (Bon Jovi, perhaps), which is not to be mistaken for music, which Shakespeare tells us is “the food of love.” Music isn’t the food of love, but these Casseroled Hearts almost certainly are.

Play on.

The ‘Pyrex’ Book of Regional Cookery, Diana Cameron-Shea, 1977

Also from this book: Brains and Bacon

What Pluck!

To pluck is to grab and pull, sometimes sharply (as with eyebrows and tweezers or a chicken being parted from its feathers), sometimes gently (as when withdrawing a dummy from a sleeping infant’s mouth, or pulling music from a stringed instrument). To pluck an object also implies a kind of rescue (as in from a car teetering on the edge of a cliff — or from obscurity).

To have pluck is also to have courage and daring — the kind needed to achieve all of the above acts of plucking. To be described as “plucky” is to be associated with fortuitous nerve, the kind most often attributed to boys who have yet to develop fear.

One needs to be plucky in order to eat pluck — the collective name for a freshly slaughtered animal’s heart, liver, lungs (“lights”) and trachea. Of all the names for offal, pluck is the prettiest and most descriptive, since to retrieve these organs one has to pluck them from the carcass.

In butchery, you can tell someone to “pluck off” and all it means is get to work you lazy sod.

A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, Charles Elmé Francatelli, 1852

Also from this book: Mutton Chops, Heads, Plucks, Shanks and Scrag-Ends, How (Not) To Make Coffee, Take A Deep Breath..., Stuffed Up, Bee Stings, How To Make The Most Of Your Pig Before It Is Killed, Faggots

Sweetbreads Niquette

 What is a sweetbread, you ask?

Any of the following: throat, gullet, pancreas, heart, stomach, tongue, cheek, salivary gland and testicles.

Enjoy!

Grand Diplôme Cooking Course Volume 13, The Danbury Press, 1971


Also from these books: In Your Face!, Your Goose Is Cooked, Vatel’s Haddock Up To Here, Frankfurter Salad