Dave Wood

I’ve been turning stomachs lately during conversations about food favorites on my dining list. People say stuff like “ugh,” and “uff-da,’’ and “el-puke-o’’ when I rattle off some of my favorite edibles, like calves’ liver, Rocky Mountain oysters and blood sausage.

My response is always the same. “If it was good enough for me as a kid, it’s good enough for me as a cranky old man.”

“YOU ATE THAT CRAP AS A KID?” is the usual cry of disbelief. 

I try to explain that some ethnic and economic portions of any society have no choice but to eat from the fifth quarter of the animal because they either like it or can’t afford the pricier cuts of the other four quarters (like beefsteak). My family fell somewhere in the middle; our economic status and our ethnic heritage combined to eat what Italians call, with some irony “The Fifth Quarter.” 

Recently I’ve become a fan of Stanley Tucci’s TV show in which he travels all over Italy to sample and report on the various cuisines of that VERY various peninsula. In Rome, he took the subway to Trastevere (“across the Tiber”), until recently a very poor section of the city where restaurants abound for their acclaimed use of Fifth Quarter meatstuffs (viands if you want to make these dishes sound more elegant—and maybe more palatable?) And what did he like and rave about? Guts, guts, and more guts, topping them off with a big pile of thymus glands (sweetbreads, in case you want to try some), pronouncing them all delicious!

Tucci’s enthusiasm makes me feel justified in my love of the fifth quarter, so here I am promoting my trips into Wisconsin to indulge in northern European ethnic dishes like blut klub, a Norwegian blood sausage, made at Robbe’s supermarket in Strum (a town, not something to pick at a string instrument).  Made of the blood that circulates throughout an animal and bits and pieces of flesh and fat, this delicacy can be said to come from all five quarters of the hog!

One of my favorite Wisconsin destinations is East End Bar in the Polish town of Independence to indulge in chicken gizzards, dipped in beer batter, pressure-cooked, and then deep-fried. My late sister used to gild these lilies by dipping them in tartar sauce, despite them being on the “do not consume” list of her Weight Watcher regimen. 

Am I making your mouth water? 

Try beef tongue. Boil it, smoke it, slice it as my friend the late “Tiny” Kliscz advised me years ago at the West Wind. “Some GOOD!” as that irritating Cajun chef used to say on the tube back in the 20^th century.

Or you can be fancy and eat it with a caper vinaigrette sauce, the way it was served at the Royal Hunting Palace in Bussaco, Portugal.  If it can be served in a palace, it can’t be that low-brow, right?

Beef heart is delectable as well. Par-boil, fill auricles and ventricles with stuffing, roast covered until tender, the way my mother made it for me when I was a mere tyke.

If you’re partial to stuffing, find a pig’s bladder and stuff it with chopped pig’s liver and lights (liver) and rolled oats. Then seal the pouch, boil, slice and serve with “gravy” (four fingers of single malt Scotch), a meal we ordered at a high-end restaurant in Edinburgh. They called it Haggis, and it tasted better than you might think.

I’m about finished with my tribute to the Fifth Quarter, but not until I retell the story of my late friend Al Sicherman, a Milwaukee Jewish guy whose religion prevented his family from eating beef from the hind quarters: 

“My fussy Uncle Max dropped by one morning and my mother asked him if he would like to stay for lunch. ‘Sure,’ said my uncle. ‘What’s for lunch, Sarah?’

‘Boiled beef tongue, Max.’

‘UGH, I couldn’t eat something that had been in a cow’s mouth….’

‘Don’t worry, Max, I’ll just boil you an egg!’”