Offal Times

In the past I've been guilty of saying that I don't like something without having tried it. It was pretty easy to do after spending a lot of time in Asia and coming across many food items I had never tasted before.

Fortunately I got past my culinary close-mindedness and discovered many foods and flavors (jellyfish, shrimp heads, sea urchin, raw chicken, sea slug, pig tongue, fatty tissue of the snow frog, etc. etc.) that I thoroughly enjoy or at least would never have experienced if had I just said "no".

So don't say ewww when you read the rest of this post!

From Time magazine...

Tough economic times (and a resurgence in popularity) have Britons eating their hearts out and swallowing their tongues. Not literally, of course. But offal — or "variety meats," as the food category is euphemistically called in the U.K. — is experiencing a surge in popularity, with sales up 67% over the past five years.

Retail and food experts say that worry over the high cost of prime meat cuts and the economic downturn have more shoppers checking out supermarket offal offerings.

At ASDA, Britain's second largest supermarket chain and a subsidiary of Wal-Mart, offal sales were up 20% last month compared to November 2007. Sainsbury's, the country's third largest supermarket chain, is selling 48% more pig livers, 22% more chicken livers and 8% more pig kidneys than it was last year.

If you have an interest in out of the ordinary food check out Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel...