This article needs additional citations for beef cheeks price. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. The word does not refer to a particular list of edible organs, which varies by culture and region, but usually excludes muscle.
Some cultures strongly consider offal as food to be taboo, while others use it as everyday food or even as delicacies. This section needs additional citations for verification. Dutch and Afrikaans, avfall in Norwegian and Swedish, and affald in Danish. Luncheon tongue” refers to reformed pork tongue pieces.
Ox tongue” made from the pressed complete tongue, is more expensive. Both kinds of tongue are found in tinned form and in slices in supermarkets and local butchers. Home cooking and pressing of tongue have become less common over the last fifty years. Elder” is the name given to cooked cow’s udder – another Lancashire offal dish rarely seen today. Offal connoisseurs such as Ben Greenwood OBE have frequently campaigned to bring Elder back on the menu of restaurants across Yorkshire and Lancashire. In Norway the smalahove is a traditional dish, usually eaten around and before Christmas time, made from a sheep’s head.
The skin and fleece of the head is torched, the brain removed, and the head is salted, sometimes smoked, and dried. Syltelabb is a boiled, salt-cured pig’s trotter, known as a Christmas delicacy for enthusiasts. Syltelabb is usually sold cooked and salted. Fish roe and liver are also central to several Norwegian dishes, such as mølje. Svið served with mashed potatoes and mashed turnips at BSÍ in Reykjavík.
Iceland has its own version of both haggis and brawn. There is also liver sausage, usually eaten as a spread on bread, similar to the Danish leverpostej. Liver is also eaten in various other forms including fried slices and minced liver patties. Especially in southern Germany, some offal varieties are served in regional cuisine.
Milzwurst, a sausage containing small pieces of spleen, and even dishes based on udder. In Austrian, particularly Viennese cuisine, the Beuschel is a traditional offal dish. It is a sort of ragout containing veal lungs and heart. A type of black pudding by the name of Blunzn or Blutwurst is also common.
In Belgium several classic dishes include organ meat. Beef or veal tongue in tomato-Madeira sauce with mushrooms and kidneys in mustard cream sauce are probably the most famous ones. In Italy consumption of entrails and internal organs is widespread. Italy’s Florentine cuisine includes cow brain. In Spain, the visceral organs are used in many traditional dishes, but the use of some of them is falling out of favor with the younger generations. In Portugal traditionally, viscera and other animal parts are used in many dishes.