Tails, Tendons and Tripe: A Guide to Discovering the Odd Bits
Put down your rib-eyes, don’t thaw those chicken legs just yet, and step away from the pot roast. Don’t get me wrong – those are fine examples of animal muscle meat. Delicious, even. But they’re not all that we should be eating. Not by a long shot. Allow me to explain.
The other day, I received an enthusiastic email from a reader who’d just returned home from the grocery store with a sack of smoked turkey tails. Thanks to a little holiday called Thanksgiving, meat counters across the country are inundated with turkey parts: gizzards, livers, hearts, necks, backs, and tails. Most consumers rarely think of using turkey other than as a “healthy” replacement for ground beef or during Thanksgiving. But not our reader. No, he filled his freezer with smoked turkey tails and the whole experience apparently inspired him, because he wrote to tell me that maybe if I wrote a post extolling the benefits of all the “odd bits” of the animals you eat, other readers would also discover a whole new culinary world.
I know what you’re thinking, because I thought the same thing. I already make bone broth regularly and eat liver on occasion. And I may pick up some “strange” things if I come across them (say, a lamb kidney, or beef heart). I usually thoroughly enjoy it all, too. But offal isn’t usually at the top of my shopping list. If we truly want to eat nose to tail, though – and we should, you know – we have to branch out. We have to delve deeply. We have to get creative. Our wallets, our taste buds, and our bodies will thank us.
So I went out and spent a couple days hunting down odd parts at the farmers’ market, the Asian supermarket, and my other sources. Here’s what I found:
Heads
Ever since the Mad Cow Disease scare, heads of ruminants are hard to come by. I’ve asked many a farmer for a cow head on many an occasion, but I’ve always been rejected. It’s sad, but I guess I understand. Luckily, I managed to dig up a pastured goat head for a mere dollar per pound. This particular head ran me two bucks, and while its meat content is pretty scant when compared to a cow or pig head, it’s still a head, and that’s what I came for.
Goats aren’t geniuses, but they do have brains. Split open that head, scoop out the brain, and make like an ancestral hominid and cook it up. Okay, while our ancestors probably weren’t stir-frying their brain in garam masala and turmeric, they were eating it. Brain is a rich source of omega-3s, especially pastured brain, and it’s likely that landlocked hunter-gatherers satisfied some of their omega-3 requirements through brain. If you don’t want to bother splitting skulls, why not make some broth out of your head? Throw it in a pot, cover it with water, and toss in some spices, herbs, and a bit of vinegar. Turn it into head cheese (that’s what I’m doing) if you prefer, or just make some soup. Once the meat is tender enough, remove it from the skull to avoid overcooking.
I also picked up a couple fish heads – halibut and salmon. Three and a half pounds worth for $10. I’ve gotten these before, and my favorite thing to do is apply a light dusting of salt and pepper, rub some olive oil all over, and pop in the oven at around 350 degrees for just under twenty minutes. That’s enough to crisp the skin without drying out the meat or burning the fat. Once it’s done, go to town on it. The cheek is the best part, but use your hands to access the interior and keep a lot of napkins handy. You’re going to make a pretty big mess if you want to get everything. It should go without saying that these contain omega-3s, but there should also be a big dose of fat soluble vitamins, selenium, iodine, and other minerals found in ocean water. You could also make fish head soup, of course. If you want to make soup, have the heads cut at the butcher.
Feet
People find feet gross, for some reason. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re in constant contact with the ground, and the ground is definitely not sterile. I guess I see where they’re coming from, but I look at feet differently. I like the fact that feet are what the animal uses to get around, because that means the feet bear all the weight. And any body part that has to handle a lot of force – like the foot – tends to have a lot of collagen, cartilage, and other connective tissue to deal with all that stress. That’s why feet make the best stock. Chicken feet, pig feet, beef feet – they’re all incredibly gelatinous and when you cover them with water and apply heat for 24-48 hours, amazing stuff happens. There is very little meat, so soup/broth/stock is the best option here. Dim sum joints serve fried and braised chicken feet, so I suppose you could play around with that dish. Now that I think of it, a chicken foot braised to the point of disintegration would be really good.
I got pig, beef, and chicken feet for $0.99/lb, $1.29/lb, and $1.99/lb respectively. I’m going to make some stock so rich and so thick that you could sleep quite comfortably on a bed made of it. I suggest you do the same. I kept the beef and pig feet intact for the photo’s sake, but if you get any sort of large animal foot from the butcher, have them cut it up to make the stock-making easier.
Tails
As you can see, the bison tail (which is very similar to beef oxtail, really) is meaty and massive, while the pig’s tail is quite small (and unfortunately not curly). Both are super-gelatinous and both make excellent broth. Both tails have a fair bit of meat on them, so I’d recommend a braise or a crockpot recipe where the meat is featured prominently. Don’t just treat the tails like broth bones. They’ll make a fine, rich stock, sure, but there’s also some good eating to be had. Cook ‘em long and slow and let them cool a little bit before you plunge in.
I picked up a box of pastured bison tails for $2.90 a pound and a few pork tails for a dollar per pound. The bison tails were whole, so I had to cut them up myself. Cutting a big bison tail without professional equipment requires getting in between the vertebrae. Use your fingers to find the joints and go from there.
Stomach
While your first inclination may be to retch at the idea of eating a pig’s stomach, I like to call it the Primal crockpot (or, alternately, the Foolproof Sausage Casing). It’s tender, rich, mild, and assumes other flavors really well. Most cooks usually use stomach as an encasing for ground up meat and vegetables. Since what stomachs do in the wild is hold food, it’s an obvious way to cook with it, but another option is to boil and chop it. You could eat the boiled stomach as is (or in soup), or you could dry it off, toss it in spices and fat, and roast/saute it until browned and crispy. I recommend something spicy and sour, maybe a cumin-chili-lime-olive oil spice mix, or even a turmeric-chili-vinegar-coconut oil one.
Stomach isn’t a nutritional powerhouse on par with liver or kidney – it’s mostly fat and protein with a nice dose of selenium – but it’s cheap, it’s tasty, and you can fill it up with other foods (think massive rotund sausage). I paid $1 per pound for mine.
Spleen
Spleen is sometimes called a poor man’s liver. It tastes a bit like it, but not as strong. It kinda looks like it, but not when you look closely. It’s high in iron, copper, selenium, and vitamin B12. It’s more delicate than liver with none of the retinol.
I got pork spleen, also called pork melt, for a couple bucks per pound.
Tendon
When most people want real broth, they turn to bones. I mean, bone broth is great. It’s alliterative, for one. It makes your house smell good (or terrible, depending on whom you ask), and it is filling on a cold day in a way that only meaty liquid can be. But if you’re a true rich broth fiend, if you’re a devout Ray Peat-ian, if you’re all about the gelatin – you had better go out and procure yourself some beef tendons. A tendon is a prime piece of connective tissue designed to hold muscle to bone and withstand all the crazy tension and force and stress that such a relationship inevitably entails. Thus, it is pure collagen, which means good things for your broth. Of course, it’s just collagen without the bone, so the broth won’t have that boney meatiness, but if you add a few bones to the mix you’ll get the best of both worlds. Tendons are basically fat-free, but a well-cooked tendon gives a mouthfeel similar to good pork belly. Good braised, good in soups.
Beef tendon ran $2.99 a pound. I got two large tendons for $4.
Tripe
Tripe is (usually beef) stomach lining. Of course, cows have several stomachs, so there are several types of tripe. I bought book tripe, which comes from the third compartment in a cow’s digestive system – the omasum. As you can see, it’s white, but that’s only because to prepare it for human consumption, tripe is thoroughly cleaned. Uncleaned tripe is intense stuff. Dogs love it, it smells like a barn, it’s green thanks to all the partially digested plant matter, and because it’s literally a cow’s gut, it’s a good source of probiotic bacteria. I almost wish it was palatable in its uncleaned state, because it’s supposed to be a nutritional powerhouse. Cleaned tripe is very mild. Its fibrous texture demands long, slow cooking and it goes well with spicy soups (a lot of tripe is used in Southeast Asian and Mexican cuisine). High in protein with a good amount of calcium.
A little over a pound of tripe cost me $3.75.
Blood
Blood is scary. Too much of it in the room at once means someone’s hurt, usually seriously. It’s red, really red. But countless cultures across history have used (and still use) blood in their cooking. Okay, so what does one do with blood? If you’re Maasai, maybe you drink it raw. If you’re an ancient Spartan, you make melas zomos, the “black soup.” If you’re a cured meat artisan, you’d probably make blood sausage. Cubed fully coagulated pork blood is often used in Southeast Asian cooking. One of my favorite soups from a local Hollywood Thai restaurant uses pork blood cubes. The texture makes it feel like blood tofu.
The blood I bought came from a pig and cost $2 a pound. When you buy blood from the meat counter, it’s already partially coagulated. This makes for easy handling, as you’re not dealing with a pure liquid. When it’s coagulated, you can pick it up and it stays relatively solid. Coagulated blood is incredibly fragile, though, and it’ll break apart at a moment’s notice. Nutritionally, there’s not a lot of available information. It’s definitely going to be high in iron, and it has a fair amount of protein, while according to this source (which references lamb blood), it’s quite low in fat and carbs. I plan on trying blood cubes in a homemade coconut milk soup (from Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals). If you want to cook with blood without it fully coagulating, add vinegar.
Trim
After the butcher removes the steaks, the roasts, the burger meat, the ribs, the loin, and every other cut that enjoys name recognition, he’s left with scraps of meat attached to the animal carcass. Of course, if you’re dealing with an animal as big as a cow, those “scraps” are actually quite substantial. Enter beef trim. The beef trim I purchased came in three oddly shaped slabs of good, deep-red grass-fed beef. They weren’t steaks, and they weren’t roasts, and the angles were all weird, but these were solid cohesive pieces of meat that could easily be cut up for stews, soups, ground into ground beef, or even made into jerky. It’s only trim because it wouldn’t look pretty in a display case. Other than that, it’s great meat at a great price.
I paid $3.50 a pound for grass-fed organic beef trim.
Well, that’s my haul. Between all of that, the “regular” parts described in my offal post from way back, and the post showing how to get this stuff into your diet, I’d say you have plenty of material to work with.
The beauty of buying all the odd bits is trifold. First, you’re getting a wider range of vital micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, and connective tissues that just don’t exist in large amounts in regular muscle meat. Second, it’s an affordable way to get your hands on high-quality, pastured animal products. You think you could ever find grass-fed, pastured muscle meat for a few dollars per pound? No way. And third, you are personally seeing to it that the animal in question does not go to waste. It’s not turned into poor quality pet food, nor is it discarded. It is utilized and enjoyed by a person that truly appreciates it.
Now I’d like to hear from you. What are your favorite odd bits? Are there any parts you’ve been dying to try, but haven’t found the courage to go out and find? Well, consider this post a challenge. Go branch out. Eat some weird stuff. It’s good for you and it’s delicious to boot. Make it so that it’s no longer weird, it’s no longer a special occasion, but just something you eat.
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
Great artcle but I think I will stick with scrapple. Trying to work on a gluten free scrapple. Its the only meat I refuse to give up eating my90/10% rule.
Maangchi’s latest video recipe is popcorn chicken gizzards. Hers are dusted in starch but I think you could do an egg wash, then saute them – http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/popcorn-chicken-gizzards
I think the tripe is bleached for human consumption. Korean markets sell blood sausage, pigs feet and all kinds of stuff, but the best for offal is the large Chinese market chain, 99 Ranch. You can find any part of any animal, I swear!
Ok. So I WANT to eat this. I think. I understand the nutritional value. Our bank account would also be happy. BUT. I was raised vegeterian my entire life, until at 31 (2 years ago) faced with skyrocketing diabetes I started Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Soloution and slowly learned my body craved meat, then came pregnancy (after trying for 8 years), and pork cravings and I am solid meat eater ever since. Recently loving sashimi. Especially after raising goats as dairy and pets, chickens and ducks, and helping with cattle…. to see the head and feet, and to think of the other makes me retch. Worse than the first few times I ate meat. Anyone have any recommendations on how to get over that intense mental/emotional/physical reaction?
I’m there with you on that one, Star. I’ve been vegetarian virtually all my life and only recently started eating fish and seafood. I was traumatized cooking mussels the other day when the little critters started moving around the pan and hissing from the heat. I was shaking so badly from the experience of killing them that I could not even eat the broth afterwards. I’ve been reading Eat Right 4 Your Blood type and I’m supposed to eat red meat for optimal health. I’m trying to work up the courage to do it, but I think I would just keep on thinking about the furry little doe eyed animal. I tried to see if I had the courage to buy meat at my local Wholefoods but then saw the entire pieces of lamb’s leg with the bones and all and almost fainted. Needless to say, I was pretty much revolted by all the pictures of the odd bits presented in today’s post, though intellectually I do understand their nutritional value. Making the transition to primal after being vegetarian is really, really hard.
I hear you guys. I was a vegetarian for 35 years or so. Been primal for about 3. Just take it slow and figure it out as you go along as to how you can best make the transition. For each it is different.
To start with, it might be the type of meat you select and/or how you cook it.
Possibly reading the Vegetarian Myth might help put your mind in a better place.
Mostly I just try not to think about the animal I am eating except to say thank you and I also tell myself that I am no different that any other animal on the planet in the food chain. (However, I’m hopefully at the top of that chain.)
Lions and tigers and bears, are you listening?
Make it into chili , or even better, ask somebody to do it for you. Most cows would be alive, if not for human consumption of beef.
I advised my son to stay away from vegetarians and animal rights activists before he went to college. It is a religion
Oh my Lulu! I would also have been horrified by the mussels! My first intro to thinking I needed to eat meat was the Eat Right book. My husband deleriously crazed from lack of meat from dutifully becoming veg to please me was triumphantly waving it in my face. Think I’m kidding?? LOL Steak was my first meat. We were stationed in North Pole AK. I had been on diabetes drugs for a few months, they and the ADA diet was wrecking me. I had to have ttwo litres of saline that day and they wanted me in hospital. I said no and went home and demanded a steak. We went to Elfs Den and had a NY Strip with butter on it. I looked like a starving dog in the streets. LOL. Later that year we had halibut at the Alaskan Fish Bake in Fairbanks. I ate so many chunks of it, it was divine, I couldn’t stop. Then I came home and puked for two days. My body was not ready for all that. That put me off meat until a couple years later. The first clue we had I was pregnant is stopping at Famous Dave’s on the way home June 08 from Minot ND to KY. J got a sampler of sorts and I got my veggie low carb meal and I proceeded to eat all the BBQ on his plate and order more and more. LOl. I just wish I had eaten meat in AK. All that wasted salmon, moose, pike, trout and halibut…
I’m in the same boat. Vegetarian for most of my life and only recently changing to a paleo-meat-filled diet to see if it helps an auto-immune disease. I started by eating ground chicken or turkey, mixed into something with plenty of veggies and familiar textures (chili, thai lettuce wraps). Then I moved up to chicken breasts cut into really small pieces. I’m now getting to some pork and beef, but have a hard time dealing with how chewy some of it is. I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat offal, but something like oxtail soup with tiny bits of meat in it might be do-able. Seeing it at the butcher counter is tough. Touching it is really hard. Nothing resists soap quite like animal fat, so I feel greasy and gross for a long time after touching meat! I’m with the others, though. Take it slow. Change your eating in small increments. Your health is worth the emotional distress you feel right now since it will fade in time.
I can’t deal with heads… eyeballs.. Sort of a general rule I have not to eat things that appear to be looking at me. I’ll have to stick with liver, heart and bone broth for now.
I have a great Caribbean Crock pot recipe for Tripe. If you’re interested let me know and I’ll post the link to my blog with the recipe.
Yes, please!
My grandparents used to breed their own pigs and we had pig-slaughter usually twice per winter season. I loved it as a kid and love it still. Not only for the delicious food but also for the tradicion as whole family gathered and it was lots of fun (and alcohol). My grandpa doesnt breed his own animals anymore, but we get a pig from a local farmer and slaughter it on our own to have home made yumminess. The pig brain usually came as first meal that day for breakfast as it was available immediately after the pig was slaughtered. I think they fed me these things while my mom still fed me with her milk, lol.
Sorry but brains are for braintanning deerhides around my house..
Well I must admit that I am not partial to most of the “odd bits” in this post, except maybe the fish heads. Several trips to China, got me addicted to a nice Fish Head Stew. Anyway a very interesting post none the less.
Awesome post, I was able to add a lot of what you said to my article for my tumblr http://dirtylittlecarnivore.tumblr.com/post/14521295427/eating-brains-or-how-we-evolved-to-eat-more-than-white
If you’ve got someone who knows how to cook it, lingua (beef tongue) is mighty tasty.
How long do you cook it?
That thing turns into hard rubber everytime I try.
cook it longer.
Here’s a pretty bare-bones recipe that I try. But I combine it with another (add black peppercorns and a bay leaf but otherwise follow the recipe).
“3 lb Beef tongue
1 qt Water
1 Lemon; sliced
1 t Salt
Wash tongue thoroughly and place in a deep kettle with water. Add lemon slices and salt. Cover tightly and cook over low heat for 3 to 4 hours or until tender. Remover from heat. When
just cool enough to handle, cut away roots and remove skin and any excess connective tissue. (Plunging tongue into cold water after cooking helps loosen skin.) If tongue is to be served cold, it will be juicier if cooled in the liquid in which it was cooked.”
I know it’s ready when I start seeing the skin of the tongue becoming separated fromthe rest and blistering.
pressure cooker is useful for the tong preparation, but it is easy to overcook. Do not be surprised, if it takes 6 hours for a tong to be ready on a stove in a regular pot. Just be patient.
Nice bit of research. Sheep’s heads (“smileys”) and chicken feet and heads (“walkie-talkies”) are popular in the townships because they’re cheap.
The furthest I’ve gone down the offal line is to teach myself to cook liver, which I used to loathe. Slice it thinly and fry it very gently in olive oil and it’s not bad.
Pasture fed beef is about $6 a pound here, but I’ve discovered game sausage at $3 a pound. It’s 30% ostrich meat and 70% bits of wildebeest, springbok, kudu etc. An absolute bargain.
Hard to find a cow’s anus in the supermarket.
and thank god for that!!
While I’m pretty grossed out by most of this post, I appreciate the suggestion of buying trim pieces. We’ve been trying to find a more affordable way to get grass-fed meat. Thanks! I might even get adventurous and try oxtail.
Why offal is gross? Why tong is gross, but another muscle is not?
Squirrel brains are very good. Remove skin from head and fry in bacon fat. pop the skull like a nut and enjoy.
Deer hearts are tasty as well, very rich and one of the best steaks on the deer. As a now primal hunter nothing goes to waste from what I bring home
“Pop the [squirrel] skull like a nut and enjoy.”
Ah, the great circle of life.
You might want to check out a cookbook called “Odd Bits” by Jennifer McLagan–I don’t own it, but it’s had great reviews. I grew up eating “ragout des pattes,” a French Canadian pork hock stew. Sadly, it relies on a browned flour gravy as its base so isn’t primal, but it was tasty.
I. Am. A. Wuss. I am laughing at today’s article because I swear, I am soo not there yet. After DECADES of being a vegetarian/vegan, I felt so “crazy” for having….eggs. “Woohoo! Look at me! Rebel!” Then, I was eating bacon (the gateway meat drug). “Woohoo! I’m, like, a meat-eater!” Then, I ate STEAK. “Seriously? I’m all carnivore, baby!” Then I tried liver and….almost vomited. (Hey, I tried.) Darnit, Mark–you’re setting the bar FAR too high for me!!
What’s next? (Don’t answer that…)
Hello Mark! I truly enjoy all your postings, this one in particular! I grew up in El Salvador and eating all the inner parts of the animal was essential while I was growing up. Nothing was wasted! Another item to add is tongue, it is delicious! I would recommend visiting a Mexican restaurant and give these item a try: Lengua tacos, menudo soup, tripe in tomato sauce, etc. My mother used to make the best brain canapes, tongue made the same way as chile rellenos. I hope everyone give the ideas you posted a chance. Thank you for all the information you offer to all of us!
In NZ we grew up on lots of offal. Sweet breads (thymus glands) from sheep or cows. Lots of sheep or lamb brains. Lots of sheep and cow tongue. Tripe and onion was a favorite meal. Mother used to stuff ox hearts and gently roast them (unfortunately they cut them flat now for inspection so no cavities to stuff). My father’s favorite was to roast a pig head cut in half. He would then strip all the meat and brain and tongue and set it all in gelatine to make a brawn you could slice as cold meat. I still eat lots of these things. Liver bacon and mushroom is one of my favorite dishes. Great subject Mark! Cheers
Any thoughts on the use of / dangers of offal from game meat? Specifically, I hunt wild boar in California and love the meat but wonder if there are any specific risks (parasites, etc.) that I should be on the lookout for when getting into the bits and pieces.
I’m very new at this but please give me some feed back. Mark recommends here to go to your butcher and get this offal, but If my butcher doesnt use grassfed beef,(organic meat) then Im kind of stuck in the SAD diet world, I figure all the organs are super good in a grassfed cow, but if its grainfed, hormone pumped then the organs are the worst for you, amirite?
p.s. can someone link me to some places to get this stuff?
You can try uswellnessmeats.com to start!
That would have been my suggestion as well.
You can check out eatwild.com I also think you can research this site for a blog on how to find pastured meat.
Greeks eat trip soup (patsas). It’s surprisingly delicious – I obviously thought it was gross when I was younger and my dad would cook it and stink up the house, but it’s actually really yummy. It’s really garlicky, and the tripe is cut small so you don’t get too much with each bite. It’s especially nice with chili flakes sprinkled on top. Google “patsas soup”, and give it a shot. A nice way for garlic-lovers to eat some new animal parts.
Sorry, that’s supposed to be Tripe soup, not trip soup.
Those pictures, especially of the feet, really did nothing for my appetite. I imagine it would takes lots of practice while hungry for me to eat offal and other bits of animals.
Bison liver in pyrex at 280 degrees F for 45 minutes. 1.5 pounds of it, once a week after the squat workout, with broccoli, mashed yams, and strawberries for dessert.
I’ve worked hard to learn to like it, and it does make me feel pretty darn good for the following 36 hours.
Hopefully that’s all the offal I’ll ever need.
And here I was feeling SOOOOO adventurous for buying a package of lamb osso bucco at Costco today! I’m still struggling to convince myself I will taste the marrow…
(Have y’all ever seen Tom Naughton’s daughters eating marrow on YouTube? It’s called “Paleo Girls” and it’s very funny and it makes me *really* want to try marrow.
I’m gonna cook the lamb tomorrow in the Sous Vide Demi (also on sale at Costco!) and then do my best to try the marrow… It MUST taste good, or these little girls wouldn’t be raving about it, right? Right? Right?
(I hope?)
I made my young daughters watch that before I put marrow on the table for the first time to ensure they’d give it a try.
It just testes like non-dense fat, I like it, but there is no special flavor, nothing weird.
I remembered another recipe with pix that fits today’s topic – Carol Keller cooking French Laundry at home, http://carolcookskeller.blogspot.com/2008/05/head-to-toe-part-two-pigs-head.html -
shows her step-by-step butchering and cooking a pig’s head using Thomas Keller’s French Laundry cookbook recipe. Not for the squeamish. Her next post was about tripe.
To all those who are interested in trying to incorporate more offal into their diets but don’t know quite what do do with whatever they buy, I highly recommend The Fifth Quarter: An Offal Cookbook by Anissa Helou. I don’t think it is 100% primal but substitutions would be quite simple. It is an exhaustive cookbook for offal with every bit of an animal you can imagine. Give it a try!
While reading this post I was imagining Mark’s kitchen piling up higher and higher with all the ‘nasty bits.’
Might look like a crazy killer was on the loose.
I’m Peruvian, so I’ve eaten my share of tasty offal. My favourite is beef liver, followed by beef heart (we marinate and grill them in skewers, they’re called anticuchos and are delicious). For some weird reason I stopped liking tripe a while ago but your post has reminded me that I should give it another go. Now that I live in Sydney is not that easy to find offal but once in a while I come across some tasty bits.
Wow – I’m sure these are all fine but I haven’t the primal fortitude yet to manage some these interesting bits. And I know it’s due to my totally sheltered experience of buying neatly sliced and packaged meats. I made a purchase of meats online and I believe I mistakenly ordered chicken necks…still don’t have any idea what to do with them so this post is pretty “inspiring”. Thanks for keeping it interesting and for keep it real!
It is usually made into soup or gravy, there is a lot of connective tissue.
I spent the past Saturday at an Asian supermarket and a Greek butcher shop. my haul was sheep heart, liver and kidneys and the omental fat around these organs. (I rendered the fat for cooking). Beef tripe, beef sweet breads (thymus?). I plan on eating offal once per week. I passed on the whole rabbit and sheep heads , just not enough room in the freezer.