Head Cheese, Please: How Americans Are Broadening Their Palates

September 15, 2009

Head Cheese

American diners are growing ever more adventurous: that, or the recession-driven “waste not, want not” mentality is expanding comfort zones and broadening the inventory of animal parts we’re willing to eat, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Whether it’s the head, feet, organs, or tail – what’s collectively called the “offal” – of an animal, more upscale restaurants are now including them on their menus.

For chefs, the use of offal is a way of embracing a more creative, completist approach to the use of animal meat and parts. Yet, it’s an approach that also requires some strategy: restaurant guests may be more experimental these days, but that does not mean that they have completely renounced their reservations regarding offal. For the sake of sensitive palates, chefs tend to offer dishes like head cheese in smaller portioned appetizers, or they pair them with more traditional meat dishes, like steak.

Diners who are familiar with a variety of ethnic foods will find dishes using offal more familiar. Traditional Chinese, Italian, and South American cuisines include tripe, for instance, and the use of pig’s feet and head charcuterie (used to make head cheese) is common in France and the UK.

The broader tolerance of viscera and other animal organs in American cuisine reveals the increasingly flexible nature of our palates. Surprisingly, our notions of what foods are appealing and which are repulsive can change with relative ease. Whatever the causes of the evolving food psyche in the United States may be – whether it’s the recession, a growing interest in conservation, or increased exposure to cultures from around the world – the culinary niche for global gourmands is undoubtedly growing.

Source: “The offal truth”, The San Francisco Chronicle.
Photo courtesy of: Beth And Her Alley Deli.