2011: What an Offal Year

This past year has seen my culinary horizons broadened beyond my wildest imagination. If you had asked me on December 31, 2010 what I would be eating a year from now, I doubt lamb brains, eye balls, and tongue would be anywhere on the list. But, here I am. "Converting" to the paleo/primal diet in June allowed me (read as: forced me) to explore new foods; the prohibition of all grains, bread products, and processed foods, coupled with the emphasis on animal products, led me to try things I had never even heard of. A balut egg? Cow heart? Chicken gizzards? "That's nasty!"

But beyond my initial repulsion, which I'm sure many of you still feel when you look at this blog, I have grown to appreciate many aspects of offal and "weird foods" in general. The first is that I enjoy doing something a little different, doing something that separates me, if in a very gross way, from other people. I view this as a challenge (rebellion isn't the right word) against conventional views of diet. In my intro to Anthropology class, I learned about the variety of different diets that human beings have survived on over the past 10,000 years (and earlier). When I was confronted with the reality that there is an illusion of food choice in this country, that despite the ever increasing number of "food products" being put on our shelves, American eaters consume were eating a very narrow (and nutritionally limited) range of foods. I wanted to challenge that. I wasn't content with switching from fried chicken to grilled chicken breast. Screw the breast; I want the goddamn hearts and feet!

I don't claim to be an expert on the science, and really, I don't care all that much, but I am impressed with what I've read about the nutritional value of offal. The organs and odd bits of the animal that most people throw out are often full of different micronutrients than those found in the more conventional cuts. Nature and evolution (as well as selective breeding on our part) has provided us with these beautifully complex creatures, full of nutrients and delicious body parts; it seems insane to throw any of it away. And for my vegetarian friends, I'm sure you can appreciate this aspect of my experiments, even if you don't like the actual meat eating itself. If we're going to slit a billion chicken necks, we might as well get every little bit of use out of it as we can, right? "Use every part of the buffalo", as they say.

I'm pretty much rambling at this point, because I hadn't planned on being reflective. But I've decided to retool this blog. My writing skills have really deteriorated due to lack of stimulation, and I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. When I return to school this week, I won't have access to stores or kitchens, so this blog will transform into a place for me to put my thoughts down. I'm still a bit too angry to write about politics (my other love), but I think food will serve as a worthy substitute. I don't know anyone else IRL that follows paleo/primal, and it can get rather lonesome reading about this shit by myself. I think providing a forum to process what I've read will be a good thing. My New Years resolution was to be more confident, relax, and enjoy life: and this blog is the first step.