Day 27: Slipping the Tongue

I’m nearing the end and the finish line is becoming visible through the thick perfume of bacon.  Breakfasts past have all blurred into one and I couldn’t remember if this morning’s breakfast was a new episode or a re-run.  I had previously criticized PC’s Bacon Marmalade for using bacon seasoning; artificial bacon flavour in a product marketed as “upscale” is just plain wrong and completely unnecessary considering how cheap and plentiful bacon is.  My previous version of this breakfast sandwich used crispy pork skin, this morning’s used bacon.  It was breakfast on the QT… as in quick and tasty.  No offence to my breakfasts over the past few weeks, but I’m longing for some yogurt.  This gives me an idea for tomorrow morning.

Bacon Marmalade and Bacon...genius!

There were plenty of leftovers from last night for today’s lunch; a few pieces of pig tail and a container full of my mother’s liver stew.  As usual, I offered to share, but the mere mention of liver causes fear in most people.  Peter, my faithful non-food-loser lunch partner was willing to try both dishes and he came away quite pleased.  The sauce of both was amazing; salty and sticky for the tails, and thick and bacony for the liver.  I freely admit to having my own fear of liver up until recent years which is understandable since unlike bacon liver really is an acquired taste.  I remember going to Swiss Chalet a few years back and nearly gagging when I ate some chicken liver that hadn’t been removed from the bird.  I was thankful for the hot lemon tea they put on the table, it got rid of the liver flavour in a hurry.  The waitress was a little surprised when I asked her for a top up…what was her problem?  But I seem to have gotten over my liver aversion at least in part, and that can only be a good thing since a broad palette opens you up to new food experiences.  Now if I could only get over my dislike of and suspected allergy to eggplant…vile weed!

Sticky tail

If last night’s dinner covered the “tail” portion, tonight’s was the “tip”.  Some people would tell you that the snout is the “tip” but I disagree.  The “tip” is technically the tongue since that’s the part that can extend the furthest forward.  As you may have guessed, I don’t really have any reservations about what parts of the animal I eat, but I fully admit that I have no fucking clue what I’m doing when it comes to cooking tongue.  My earliest recollection of cooked tongue was when my mom used to make cow’s tongue occasionally.  I remember going up to a bubbling pot that was sitting on our harvest gold stove and lifting the lid to see what was cooking.  As I lifted the lid, the tongue rose slightly out of the water, almost as if it was coming to get me.  That memory stuck for a long time and it wasn’t until I was well into my teen years that I was willing to try it once again.

My mom gave me some brief instructions last night that hinged on first boiling the tongue, then stripping it of its layer of papillae (taste buds) and then either frying to brown the meat or cooking it briefly in a tomato sauce.  Since this pig shared some genetic material with Gene Simmons, there was enough tongue to try both preparations.  I needn’t have been so apprehensive about cooking the tongue, nothing could have been easier.  I ran into a snag when peeling the layer of papillae away from the meat because some of it wasn’t cooperating.  I found a simple solution to that problem in a sharp knife and cut away the offending layers.

In the end I prepared the tongue three different ways: boiled with a drizzle of olive oil; boiled, then pan seared; and boiled, then pan seared with tomato bacon sauce.  I’m completely convinced that If I served it as presented here, nobody around the table would know its provenance, and everyone would agree that it was delicious.  Now...give me some tongue!

Pan fried

Boiled, with a drizzle of olive oil

With tomato bacon sauce