Greetings.

So, I am thinking in bed last night, as I am wont to do, and started
wondering about the sundry delicious parts of animals that so many of us
like to eat. The bulk of meat consumed by us non-vegetarians tends to be
regular muscle tissue, though many of us also have a predeliction for such
parts as the stomach (tripe), thymus and pancreas (sweetbreads), blood
(blood sausage, blood pudding), intestines (chitterlings, sausages),
testicles (prairie oysters), skin (cracklins, pork rinds), liver, gizzard,
tongue, heart, bone marrow, kidneys, brain, and fat. While some people
consider these organ meats and tissues fit only as dog food, pretty much
any supermarket or private butcher will be happy sell them to you for
human consumption.

However, I have noted a distinct lack of some rather well-known organs from
the supermarket and butcher shelves. The largest two I can think of are
udders and lungs. What gives here? Are they really so foul-tasting that
no one in his or her right mind would want to eat them, or is there some
other reason that I have no recipe for Udder Fricasee or Soufflé de Lungs
in my many cookbooks? Wikipedia claims that the United States' food
safety laws forbid the sale of animal lungs for human consumption. Why?
Are they poisonous?

Other organs which I've never seen for sale or as part of a recipe include
the spleen, uterus, eyes, ovaries, thyroid, gall bladder, and bladder
(hey, if they can get the urine out of kidneys, they should be able to do
the same with the bladder). Does anyone ever eat these except perhaps
ground up into sausages?

And while we're at it, why is it that it's only land animals we tend to
harvest organ meats from? With fish, you're pretty much stuck with the
muscles (including sometimes tongues) or caviar/roe. I bet some of the
bigger fish, like tuna, must have pretty sizeable hearts and livers. How
come I never see shark liver pté at my local fishmonger's?

Regards,
Tristan

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