Brain disection- help please

[J]

Hi Barbara

Certainly not! Some of us were raised on this sort of thing. I guess I'm showing my age now, and my small town country origins. Needless to say I don't inflict these things on my children (now adults) or my husband (picky eater), but we used to have these things on a regular basis in my younger days, and loved it!

Julie

[Ocean Breeze]

Sorry Julie. Just checking that you were fair dinkum. So I can genuinely pick on you! SWEET!
I too was raised on offal. Loved liver & onions, ate kidney, black pudding (yum) and haggis.
My family didnt eat tripe or brains though, although my mother loved sliced tongue(OUCH). Thought of tongue was way too much for me. She said it was really tasty...ewww! Pun.Double squirm!

I no longer eat any blood or offal,since I was a late teenager and figured out what these things were! ( I remember the day someone told me what it was that actually gave the flavour to kidneys!!!)...and for that reason I dont eat sausages or rissoles or pies. My MIL worked in a pie factory, and what was in pies (many yrs ago) would curl your hair!

[Slartibartfast]

I removed my earlier post because I wasn't sure how it would be received but that was before you posted yours in return Barbara! Look how this forum turned out!! Dreadful. I'm ashamed of all of you! I had nothing to do with it etc etc. My Dad would eat almost anything off anything, that's how he was raised I suppose, then again, I sometimes eat sausage rolls and they have everything in them all at once don't they. So long as I can't recognise it I'm OK.

[Ocean Breeze]

Oh, Richard, you lured us into confessing our inner psychos, and then you delete your post! Good one! That could be entrapment!!! How DO you delete a post anyway?

[Slartibartfast]

Er, you become a moderator but everyone should be able to do it. Does a small X in a box turn up in the botton right hand corner in all posts or just yours? My head teacher was about also but I wish I hadn't removed it as it affects the flow of the forum, tried to get it back but no such luck. Sometimes people are typing a reply as you are and it just comes out a funny way in the order of posts. It's been a great laugh though. You lot crack me up!

[RosalieM]

I think you should put it back so the rest of us can see what all the fuss was started by! I must say that yet again I am enjoying a good read!
Rosalie

[Slartibartfast]

Oh, alright, it went along the lines of how an office staff member on learning I had been to the butchers to pick up Lamb Brains for a dissection claimed how much her husband and herself enjoyed eating them. I felt the need to gross her out back (I found the thought of eating them revolting) by taking the invoice from the butcher over to her in the office after I had liberally splashed it with fake blood. Thats all, nothing too dramatic but she almost passed out. She's a lovely lady but she doesn't seem to take such an interest in what I have gone out a bought from suppliers so much any more. The SAM (raised on farms all her life) told her not to be so soft but had to admit she was quite disturbed when presented out of the blue with such an invoice! I explained it's got practical benefits also, she could find it easily in a manilla folder filled with hundreds of other school invoices in a flash!!!!

[fibreweb]

Like Julie, I love brains.

I'ts my first choice if it's on the Menu when we go out for Dinner. Especially when they are crumbed, then fried in Garlic butter. I like the justuposition of the chrunchy outside with the melt in your mouth interior.

Maybe it's also my age and small country town upbringing. Pressed tongue and tripe were also usual fare at the tea table.
Those I dont like much, though mum did do a lovely tripe in white sauce.

This is an interesting topic as I have to pick up 12 brains tomorrow. Expensive things they are too. $7 for 4 brains. At the end of the year for "Human movement and co-ordination" I have to purchase 10 per class for 7 classes. A very expensive exercise for what will end up as cat food. Though I have grossed some out in previous years saying I'm taking it home for my tea!

We usually use them patially thawed though I am goiing to try some of your suggestion/Recipes with one of tomorrows brains.

Wendy

[Slartibartfast]

Wendy, what's Pressed tongue? Sounds a bit saucy! I don't think that's appropriate behaviour at the dinner table but you say it was the usual fair in Tamworth! My brother who lives there certainly hasn't mentioned it. Is it to do with kissing or what am I thinking of? I tried partially thawing the brains for a Dissection prac yesterday afternoon, works well but I don't think the students appreciated the effort, they're such a soft lot these days!

[fibreweb]

Hi Richard,

Not much else to do in a country town as a teenager but press tongues!

Maybe you brother didn't live here in the late 60's early 70's.

Though seriously it was ox tongue that had had the pooper boiled out of it (a bit like corned beef, though even smellier as it was cooking) then put into an enamel bowl especially kept for the purpose with a saucer on top then a can of baked beans to press the meat down into a congealed mass. It was then served up cold as a salad meat.
No wonder I was skinny as a teenager, I'd only eat the salad.

[J]

Hi Wendy
You forgot to skin it before putting it in the enamel bowl!

Julie

[fibreweb]

Maybe mum did too, That's probably why it was tough, stringy and revolting!!!!!!!!!

Wendy

[JudyM]

I grew up in Sydney and even I used to eat the delicacies mentioned (couldn't come at tongue though). But that was in a past life thank goodness.

The board outside a butcher shop I use has a sign that says:

Sheep Brains $2.50 a box
INCREASE YOUR IQ!

Cheers
Judy

[Loopy]

If I am repeating myself because the post I thought I submitted didn't show up I apologise now... (always have go places twice - the second time to apologise!)
BUT what I had said was something in the lines of Mmmmm! Such culinary and gastronomic delights! Reminds me of the cook book I have at home with recipes such as pigeon pie and fricasseed rabbit! Then I went on to say that we have just completed the brain dissection and having experimented with the different preparation options offered, the freezing, then defrosting, then incubating technique won hands down being less smellier and still allowing the students to see different colours, etc. So "42" you've done it again!
Thanks,
Lou P.

[pkij]

We used to have a lot of fun here with the old head of science, when she would dissect rats she made the students name them and would have fun making them dance and talk. She then would take one and make it wave through the window to any other classes in the labs at the time. The new head is'nt half as much fun.

I must admit to defrosting a few organs in the microwave in the lunch room, I even left some kidneys on too long one time and cooked them, but sadly I don't have the taste for them like you country folk, as I was brought up in the city. I also often leave them in a tub outside the prep room to defrost in the sun, that grosses them (squeamish staff and students) out a bit.

I always let the office staff know well in advance that I have ordered rats so they can wait with great expectation for them to arrive. We get our rats from "the rat man" at James Cook University in Townsville. I've never met him, but the name is enough for me to hold him in great esteem. Apparently he spends a great deal of time breeding rats, I wonder if he started out as a lab. tech and specialised?

Have a great holiday
Pilar

[Slartibartfast]

42, eh, that's me! It does work well and like you said it keeps the smell down which I think affects the students more than the visuals.

[rae]

Love the comment about the recipe book for fricassee rabbit and pigeon pie. I had an uncle who bred racing pigeons and if they didn't perform he would put them in a pie. He also ate parrot pies and he had ferrets so I can remember eating rabbits he had caught on our farn. Mum did a LOVELY stew. I actually quite liked it!!

Lorrae

[Slartibartfast]

I had an anngora rabbit called Moon Unit when I was little. He looked delicious.

[Ocean Breeze]

Richard
Cant find any such box with an X anywhere on my posts.
Maybe we can only edit. That way the post shell remains, even though we can delete the text to smithereens. Ohterwise the flow of the threads will look like mincemeat by the end of the week.

Perhaps an appeal to the higher eschalons of the sites powers that be may do the trick. Just in case someone posts and then realises they are in BIG touble by leaving it there.

Ps We did the brains. I tried the soaking in salt option. But only had 3 days, and they were still mush. Longer soaking next time, or one of the other drying, alcohol etc options

[Ocean Breeze]

I often ate rabbit stew as a child. I also had pet rabbits. I never quite made the connection, or I may not have enjoyed the stew.