Someone
had to babysit the tongue. It is, as I write, a-bubblin’ and bouncin’ in the
that there pot. It’s raining out. My instructions are to wait for the white
stuff to flake off: if you’ve ever looked at your own tongue in the mirror
after burning it, you’ll know what I’m looking for. Takes about two hours for a
tongue this big and by ‘big’ I mean a forearm’s worth of muscle tuned to
plucking blades of grass. Big enough for it not to be ready in time for dinner
last night by 9 o’clock so we had Italian instead and more than one aperitif.
Tongue’s
great, though I never thought I’d say it. But then, I’ve had to back down from
higher mountains I’ve talked my way up. For years (3) I’ve maintained zero interest in the more internal of internal meats; not that I constantly had to
defend myself but the suggestion has, on more than one occasion, come up. Turns
out most of these things (minus kidneys) are delicious. The cow version of them
anyway. Once I was tasked to make an extra sheep’s liver into something riffed
from Ottolenghi’s Plenty. I managed to make it green but it was gross.
In calf’s
tongue I’ve tasted the tenderest of pork loins, a proper
fall-apart-at-the-mere-suggestion-of-a-fork pot roast and a very convincing
sandwich filling at a (where else?) Brooklyn deli of the New Order. The stock
it leaves over is a meal in itself and is something that, I think, should be
served in small paper cups steaming hot in the snow to go.
Serve
with a proper potato salad (by which I mean ONLY: good, small potatoes, cider
vinegar, sunflower oil, finely chopped shallot, leftover cooking water (warm)
salt and pepper and maybe some spring
onion), a caper-mustard sauce made with tongue jus on the side or in a warm, buttered roll with a shred of red
onion and mustard.
Tongue’s
done.
