Junket Rennet Custard, the growing up dessert!
I remember getting queasy when I learned years ago what rennet is - enzymes from mammalian stomachs. Knowing now that the origin of nearly all foods, particularly traditional food, is uncomfortable to modern sensibilities, it doesn't sound bad at all. Everything you eat is something you really wouldn't want to eat, if you think about it too hard. Shellfish? Eggs? Radishes?
You can still find it in stores, so someone is buying it. It had an unusual texture, which I almost liked, but always retained slight suspicions of. My granddaughters are being brought up as such thoroughly retro girls - think Doris Day - that perhaps they would take a shine to it. I was hoping to find a YouTube of that commercial, but no such luck. I can still sing it, of course. I can always still sing you the commercial to anything.
You really can't think about the origins or composition of foods. Or restaurant kitchens for that matter. Ignorance is bliss. Or, at least it allows you to survive.
ReplyDeleteThere's a story I heard.
ReplyDeleteSomeone was traveling overseas, and spending the night at a hostel. He was offered cow's tongue as the meat in his meal.
Not knowing quite how to explain his queasiness at the thought of eating cow's tongue, he stammered to the host that he would like something else. His mother had warned him not to eat something that had been in an animal's mouth.
The hostess looked at him for a second, then asked if he would like some eggs.
You use rennet to make cheeses at home, also. Why vegetarians (who are okay with dairy foods) have a problem making some cheese. There are other things that will curdle the milk to make cottage or soft cheese, but rennet works best.
ReplyDeleteJello is made from gelatin which is made of hooves and marrow from animals, also off limits to vegetarians, and arguably risky if you worry about Mad Cow disease if you inhale it.
Also, people (like me) who love their flowering bulbs and organic gardening and plop lots of bone meal to help things grow, may be risking getting mad cow and other diseases...
And, of course, when people have asked why my roses looked and smelled so gorgeous, I would just say: pounds and pounds of manure and spraying ground up seaweed. Yuck the people would say, but that's what made the roses look and smell so lovely...
It's all a matter of recombining blocks of matter...
I have nieces and nephews who can't bear to eat any bird prepared in such a way that you can tell it once was a live bird. They stared in horror at whole, wild roasted ducks. (And that's with the head and feet removed.) I know many grownups, for that matter, who can't deal with a whole fish on the table.
ReplyDeleteBeef tongue is absolutely delicious, by the way. As good as prime rib.
They wouldn't likeItaly, then, where fast food is slices of roast pork at a market stall from a whole piggie with a grimacing face smiling at you.
ReplyDelete