French Kissing A Cow

So, I had this Ox Tongue in my mouth, and I thought to myself, "The world needs to know how good this feels".

When you go to the butcher, there's an entire table-length of meat, sometimes six-feet-deep. Everything is nicely labelled, sliced all fancy, and sourced from well-trained farmers using age-old techniques. Yet nineteen times out of twenty, what does the butcher hear? "Sausages". Occasionally, if you're feeling ritzy you might say "Steak please my man!" with an arched eyebrow and a sassily tilted panama hat.

There's all this other stuff folks don't even notice. What gives?



Hell yeah, check that out. Nestled away between the ham and the pale-speckled salami is this crass little guy. Tongue. He's there, he's offal, get used to it.

I'm a guy who generally assumes if a product is on sale, it probably isn't poisonous (with the exception of bleach, weedkiller, and Sunny Delight) so I did the honourable thing so you guys don't have to. I ordered two extra thick slices of tongue.

Being honest, I was expecting the butcher to give me a little wink or something. Possibly a small nod by way of acknowledging my conscientious choice and congratulating me on being a lunch-meat pioneer. However, this fantasy kind of fell down a little when he just out-and-out laughed in my face.



That open-mouthed grin isn't anything to do with cheer or camradery. He is literally laughing at me because I asked him for the tongue. He even grimaced a little when he handed it to me.

This did not bode well.

Not to be put off by public ridicule, my decision was made. The meat itself has a wonderfully tender texture. It flakes like roast lamb and has the aroma of rare beef. Best eaten cold, I picked up a box of Matzo Crackers to enable the meat to better be transported to my face.



Matzos deserve a post all of their own, and will probably get one at some point, but for now I will only say that they are large, simple and my favourite commercially available cracker to date. I spread a little butter on one and assembled my humble meal.

Look how perfectly the tongue slice fits on the Matzo:



Awesome, right? What a match made in heaven. Just a little cracked black pepper to class things up and I was good to go. As we say here at DINNERGEDDON, the time had come to "step up to the plate".

Man, I'm so glad I did. Such a smooth delicate flavour, slightly pate-like, but without the sharpness of liver that a lot of people dislike (Disclaimer: I love liver, more on that soon). If somebody had served this to me as an amuse bouche in a restaurant, I'd have guessed it was steak terrine, or possibly even lightly cured game of some kind. It doesn't hit you over the head with taste, but it's got a really pleasant simplicity that's actually very refined.

I say, to hell with peer-pressure. March yourself down to the meat counter and state proud and loud that you would like to eat tongue and you don't care who knows it.

Just remember you may want a paper bag to place over your head on the way out.