Some of you are just going to HATE this post. I’m very sorry about that, but perhaps you should go away now and do some knitting or mow the lawn or whatever it is that you do and come back again tomorrow.
Because I’m going to rabbit on about a food subject, not for the first time, that is a bit difficult for most people.
Offal.
Or, more particularly, tongue.
There
I’ve said it.
That wasn’t so hard, was it?
For ages now, I’ve been trying to get some, um, oral history from Mum.
What did Grandma cook the first night Dad went to meet his future parents-in-law? (It was “sharp steak” … more on that another day.)
Which female ancestor was the one who smoked the pipe?
How did Great Grandmother Maud die?
Did Grandpa really have rabbit (that he’d trapped) and macaroni for breakfast?
How do you press an ox tongue?
Pressed ox tongue, brains in white sauce, lambs’ tongues in white sauce, tripe in tomato sauce, devilled kidneys, fried liver … they’re the stuff of my childhood. Offal was cheap, sold in every Australian supermarket in cling-wrap-covered white Styrofoam trays next to the rump steak and lamb chops; it came home with the groceries next to the Golden Circle unsweetened pineapple juice, the Fountain tomato sauce and the Praise mayonnaise. Offal was the stuff of myth and legend and apocryphal stories. (I remember a wonderful story I was told in Portugal about the origins of Oporto’s famous tripe dish. As I remember it, when Henry the Navigator was off raping and pillaging North Africa in the fifteenth century or so, all the city’s best provisions were borne away for the campaign… all that was left for those left behind was the tripe. I wish I had an equivalently evocative story for tongue.)
So when did offal become a rarity, only to be served at an occasional high-falutin’ restaurant to puffed-up diners mostly putting on a brave face? ("A fraudulent affectation," says Guardian writer Zoe Williams in an article on the subject.) It’s not hard to speculate in a pretentious food-writer’s-sort-of-a-fashion about how this happened… our increasing affluence; the stigma of offal as a meat for poor people; time-poor and poor cooks with no time or capacity to prepare it properly; the shift from rustic and wise butcher to sanitised supermarket; the shift from instruction manuals such as the Commonsense Cookery Book to glossy food magazines.
Those shiny happy titles don’t get their hands dirty with offal (after watching my mother peel her slobbering, curled ox tongue and cut away its “root” recently, I hardly blame them), but it’s a great pity because, quite apart from the fact that we’re losing a fine and (formerly?) frugal home-cooking tradition, offal is one of the most brilliant culinary experiences – both flavour-wise and texturally – and women through the ages – and the Japanese – have known this.
The 19th century: In The Antipodean Cookery Book and Kitchen Companion (1895), author Mrs Lance Rawson suggests choosing a thick tongue with a good smooth skin. “To remove the skin,” she advises, “plunge into cold water for a minute or two, and it will peel off easily.”
In the early 20th century: Things were getting a little more sophisticated. Fannie Merritt Farmer in the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1907) suggests serving a braised tongue with a roux-based sauce of four cups of the water in which the tongue was cooked, Worcestershire sauce and stewed and strained tomatoes or, alternatively, breaded tongue with tomato sauce.
About 1948: Good Cookery, the Book of the Gloucestershire Training College writes: “A smoked tongue goes into cold water, a pickled tongue into lukewarm water. … If served hot, reheat it in stock and send to table covered with browned crumbs and with a good sauce. If served cold, glaze it and decorate it. If trussed, a frill is put around the root.”
In the 1950s: In the “Luncheon Dishes and Entrees” chapter of one of my favourite old cookbooks, the Hostess Cookbook (1952), the lady writer Helen M. Cox offers a recipe for “Hot Ox Tongue with Sauce Henri”. (Sauce Henri, apparently, is stock, meat extract or beef cube, with orange rind, blackcurrant or other dark jelly, mustard, flour, butter and sherry.) You should, says the author, garnish your tongue with ham rolls, prunes and sprigs of parsley.
By the Sixties: In Mediterranean Food (Penguin, 1965), Elizabeth David proposes Langue de Boeuf en Paupiettes: “Remove the horny part from an ox-tongue; blanch it in boiling water for 15 minutes and then cook in a casserole until the skin can be removed. When cold, cut in thin slices and cover each piece with a layer of meat stuffing; paint over with a knife dipped in beaten egg to unify the stuffing, roll the slices, put a small piece of bacon on each and tie up or pierce with a skewer. These should be toasted in front of the fire but can be cooked in the oven in a casserole. When they are almost cooked, sprinkle breadcrumbs over the paupiettes, and when they are a golden brown, serve with a sauce piquante.” (For such a sauce: “Fry a sliced onion in oil, butter or dripping, add a wineglass of vinegar and two cups of stock of whatever meat the sauce is to be served with. Add herbs, a clove of garlic, salt and pepper, and simmer until the sauce is a good consistency. A few minutes before serving, add a spoonful each of capers and chopped gherkins.”)
In the 21st century: Delia Smith is plumping for an ox-tongue revival, suggesting the tongue “needs to be well scrubbed with a stiff brush.” Meanwhile, Australia’s own Stefano de Pieri recommends braised ox tongue with star anise (“the use of offal is what makes Italian cuisine something special,” he says); Stephanie Alexander shares her idea for poached pickled ox tongue with roasted beetroot and salsa verde; a Balinese website I stumbled upon offers a recipe for ox tongue in sweet nutmeg sauce; and Northern Ireland’s Belle Isle School of Cookery cooks ox tongue with port jelly.
I asked my friend Greg Malouf, whose lambs tongue salad is one of my finest culinary memories, how he might prepare ox tongue. He was initially a bit disparaging – he hates cold tongue, he told me, it’s like polystyrene. (Ox-tongue-sandwich lovers such as myself might disagree.) It should be heated up in a pan over a low flame with a little lemon and olive oil, says Chef Malouf. Then he’d serve it sliced in a salad with Lebanese cucumber and a garlic, coriander and lemon dressing. All that lovely acidity cutting through the tongue’s richness.
So where do you start? You start by talking to your butcher and begging him or her to order a pickled tongue in for you. Then you might, bravely, attempt my Mum’s time-honoured recipe.
Mum’s Pressed Ox Tongue
1 pickled ox tongue
For a 1.5kg tongue:
¼ tsp dry mustard
4 cloves
¼ tsp peppercorns
1 dsp brown sugar
1 dsp brown vinegar
2 cloves garlic, crushed
enough water to cover tongue
Put all ingredients except tongue in a large saucepan and allow to heat up. Wash tongue. Put the tongue in the saucepan, making sure there’s sufficient water to cover the tongue, cover and bring to the boil. Simmer the tongue for three hours.
Remove the tongue from the liquid and cool until you can handle it. Peel the tongue and cut away the root.
Curl the tongue into a small stainless-steel bowl; sit the bowl on a plate (to take any overflow of juices), cover with an appropriately sized plate, and weight it down. Refrigerate overnight. The next day, upend the tongue onto a plate. It will keep for two or three days in the fridge.
