My Degrading Dinner
November 13th, 2008This Stuff Tastes Offal Good
I went to Winn-Dixie and got some huge ham hocks and a…wad…of collard greens. I don’t know what else to call it. It’s not a head. It’s not a bunch. It’s a wad. It was so big, I couldn’t put it in a produce bag. So it got grocery germs all over it before I got it out of the store, and I had to wash it pretty well at home.
I have a pot which probably holds six or eight quarts, and I figured I would use that to make the greens and hocks. Wait until you try to jam an entire sliced wad of collard greens into a pot that size. No way. I ended up putting the hocks and some water in it, and I put as much greens in as I could, and I got it boiling. As the greens wilted, they sank, and I managed to get the whole wad in there. I’ve added garlic and pepper. Three hours from now, I expect to be in paradise. I considered adding a piece of habanero. I may still do so. I think a squirt of key lime juice would be good in greens, but it’s too far-out for what I’m doing today.
I just looked at a site about ham hocks. They claim “soul food” comes from the “abhorrent tradition of slavery.” Please. What a crock. How long are we going to be subjected to this myth? Soul food is just Southern food prepared by black people. It comes from the abhorrent tradition of not wasting good food, which was shared by all races. What white Southerner in his right mind would look down on ham hocks? One who wanted to starve, I guess. At least until LBJ saved the world with welfare checks. When my parents were kids, people had to be frugal with food. They slaughtered hogs and let nothing go to waste. They didn’t throw out the hocks and jowls or the other “soul food” ingredients. Why would they? They taste fantastic.
I think it’s safe to say most white Southerners don’t eat fried chitlins (I may be wrong), but they have always eaten sausage skins, which are supposed to be the same thing. I’m assuming chitlins are the small intestine. It’s confusing. No one in my family eats them, so I can’t ask them, and Internet “authorities” differ. Some say it’s the large intestine, which is pretty gross, because the large intestine is where feces come from. If it’s the small intestine, fry it up and I’ll eat it. I’ve eaten piles of them already, stuffed with sausage, so what’s the difference?
Right now, I can get in the car and drive two miles and sit down to a plate of grilled cow chitlins at an Argentinian barbecue joint. Oh, save me from oppression.
It must be the small intestine. A health site says chitlins are dangerous when “contaminated with feces.” All large intestine meat is poo-tainted. The Wikipedia entry on chitlins appears to be full of…wait for it…misinformation.
Anyway, the idea that soul food came from slaves in the South is just plain stupid. The word “chitterling” comes from England. I guess they had cotton plantations back in Chaucer’s day.
My mother used to tell me scary stories about the parts of animals she used to eat. The stuff of nightmares. She said that when my grandmother killed chickens for chicken and dumplings, she would separate out the ovary or whatever it is that makes the eggs and serve it on the side, with half-formed eggs in it. Slaves! My mom and her family must have been slaves!
Goooo downnnn…Mo-ses…
Sorry, I got carried away.
In a few hours, I expect to be dining like a king.
Or a slave.
November 13th, 2008 at 1:54 PM
You should sign up for reparations since your extended family ate like slaves. That way you could collect from guys like me, whose ancestors weren’t even here during the time of slavery (they were in places scattered between London and Riga, Latvia). Nice racket, but that about sums it up, sadly.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:00 PM
It was a real eye-opener for me when I moved to Alabama years back. In the meat department they had virtually every single part of the pig laid out in the meat case. Oh, the chitterlings were in buckets next to the meat section.
They had ears, snouts, feet, internal organs of every variety, jowls, tails, etc. From the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail they had it all. Some of my white coworkers ate chitlins, but there was some heated discussion over whether they should be stump cleaned (whacked over a stump to get the gunk out) or just scrubbed. Oh, and to expect at least one kernel of corn to make through any cleaning process.
I never did try it.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:44 PM
While I’ve eaten sausage casings, I don’t particularly enjoy them. I have a feeling that chitlins aren’t going to do a thing for me. Regardless of whether they’re poo-free or not.
I’ve seen collard greens, but I’ve never tried them. I tend to not like stuff like that, so I didn’t take advantage of the opportunity. I intend to rectify that the next time I get the chance. But I’m also expecting to dislike them. Vegetation is not my friend, unless it’s heavy on the starches.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:48 PM
It’s a mess. A mess o’ greens.
Being from Tennessee, you should know that. 😉
November 13th, 2008 at 2:54 PM
Well, here is the problem. “Mess” means “meal.” Someone asked my great aunt Berthy how she had lived to be so old, and she said, “I never missed a mess.”
And I’m from Kentucky.
November 13th, 2008 at 3:51 PM
Gotta put a bit of sugar in there too… with the fat from the Ham Hocks (hey, add some fatback too)… mmm good like Grandma used to make.
And ditto to what Michael said… it’s a mess o’ greens…
November 13th, 2008 at 4:24 PM
Never spent much time in the south. Up here near Obamaland the place to buy chitterlings is Moo & Oink.
http://home.moo-oink.com/home.html
November 13th, 2008 at 4:25 PM
Congratulations! You’re on the bleeding edge of the current foodie curve, which is now completely enamored with offal of all kinds. Hearts, gizzards, ears and spleens are now adorning the plates of high-end restaurants worldwide, and commanding insanely high prices, especially when you consider that lots of butchers have been throwing away a lot of these bits due to lack of demand.
Look up “duck fries” when you get a minute. They were serving whole platefuls of these things on one of the Food Network shows last week, and the diners where having on-camera orgasms over them. Which is…well, never mind.
Offal – it’s not just for hot dogs anymore.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:45 PM
In my part of the South there were three kinds of greens. Collards, mustard greens, and turnip greens. My Kin tended more to the mustard and turnip greens. In the spring we’d have Poke Sallet. Grew wild all over and you had to eat in the spring when it was still young. I eaten it straight but my Mother and both my Grandmothers liked to mix it with Mustard green. It was looked upon as kind of a spring tonic.
A cleaning out of the system as it were and it did that let me let me tell you.
Lotts’a folks in these parts eat Chitlins. Both White & Black folk. The big problem with chitlins is it’s a pain in the but to prep’em. You boil’em then rinse’em and let them cool down
before they’re battered and fried. My old man liked them boiled better than fried. I never had a taste for’em that way but I’ve eaten my share fried.
November 13th, 2008 at 6:36 PM
The respondents so far have overlooked dandelion green and many made dandelion wine although I don’t know which part of the plant they used. But greens were never my bag.
November 13th, 2008 at 9:56 PM
In the Air Force I worked with a guy from Alabama. His mother used to send him half gallon ice cream tubs of chitlins, which he used to put in the dayroom microwave. I’m pretty sure there were feces somewhere in there. On the other hand, I would kill for a piece of his mother’s sweet potato pie.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:05 AM
I used to raise a variety of kale called Hungry Gap. It was four feet tall and reseeded itself so that you always had kale. I can’t find the seed for that anymore. It was so good.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:32 PM
Yeah, I screamed KENTUCKY the second after I hit Submit Comment.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:38 PM
Try Tucker’s Seeds for the Hungry Gap Kale seeds.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:42 PM
Actually, Tuckers Seeds is out of stock on Hungry Gap seeds. Sorry.
November 14th, 2008 at 11:34 PM
Love those greens, but this post caused me to flash back to a favorite food my Grandma fixed and which I LOVED as a kid: Calf brains with scrambled eggs. Remember that?
I don’t know if you can still get them and I don’t think I’d ever eat them now–Mad Cow Disease. But man that was some good eatin back in them days.