i Lead Recipes

A whole bird from a butcher is often packaged with the giblets (sometimes sealed in a bag in the body cavity). Although it does not technically fit the definition above, the neck is often included with the giblets, as it must be separated from the body during the process of butchering. There are a number of recipes that use giblets. If a bird is to be stuffed, the giblets are traditionally chopped and added to the stuffing. If not, they can be used for other purposes, such as giblet pie or, a Southern U.S. favourite, giblet gravy. With the exception of giblet gravy, the liver is not usually included in these recipes, as its strong flavour tends to overpower other ingredients. It may be used in liver-specific recipes, such as pâté or yakitori. Giblets can also be used to make alicot, a French stew.

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There are many recipes, most of which have in common the following ingredients: sheep’s ‘pluck’ (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal’s stomach for approximately three hours. Most modern commercial haggis is prepared in a casing rather than an actual stomach. There are also meat-free recipes for vegetarians and vegans. Haggis is traditionally served with “neeps and tatties” (Scots: swede, yellow turnip or rutabaga and potatoes, boiled and mashed separately) and a “dram” (i.e. a glass of Scotch whisky), especially as the main course of a Burns supper. However it is also often eaten with other accompaniments, or served with a Whisky-based sauce.

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Tripe is eaten in many parts of the world, and there are numerous recipes for preparing it. Beef tripe is usually made from only the first three chambers of a cow’s stomach: the rumen (blanket/flat/smooth tripe), the reticulum (honeycomb and pocket tripe), and the omasum (book/bible/leaf tripe). Abomasum (reed) tripe is seen much less frequently, owing to its glandular tissue content. Tripe is also produced from sheep, goats, pigs, and deer. For human consumption, tripe must be washed and meticulously cleaned before cooking.

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In Britain and some Commonwealth countries, “black pudding” or “blood pudding” is made from blood and some filler grains and spices, often oatmeal. Blood sausage or black pudding is any sausage made by cooking animal blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled. Pig or cattle blood is most often used. Typical fillers include meat, fat, suet, bread, barley and oatmeal. Varieties include drisheen, moronga, black pudding, blutwurst, blood tongue, kishka (kaszanka), biroldo, mustamakkara, verivorst, and many types of boudin. Some cultures consider blood to be a taboo form of food. In Jewish and Muslim cultures, for instance, religious law forbids the consumption of blood.

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Humble pie, or umble pie, is also a term for a variety of pastries, originally based on medieval meat tripe pies. The expression derives from umble pie, which was a pie filled with liver, heart and other offal, especially of cow but often deer or boar. Umble evolved from numble, (after the French nomble) meaning ‘deer’s innards’. Umbles were considered inferior food, in medieval times the pie was often served to poorer people. Umble pie in its literal sense is a filled pastry similar to many respects to a Cornish pasty. The popularity of the dish umble pie among 15th and 16th century commoners in Britain gave rise to the expression “eating humble pie”. Although the original umble pies contained mostly tripe they later evolved to a form, which might contain fruit and sweetening, often without meat. Recent “humble pie” recipes often have only sweet fillings. Modern humble meat pie recipe often included pricier cuts of meat such as chopped steak.

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