The Paleo Diet Cooking Beef Tongue - A Step By Step Lesson of a True Delicacy is a specialty in many countries.
I had the pleasure of dining in the world famous Basque establishment, The Overland Hotel, Bar and Restaurant, located in Nevada, back in 1969 when I was a young Forest Service firefighter.The Overland has recently closed its doors.My memories of a summertime dinner with my friends are still fresh.
If you have never been to a western Basque restaurant, you are in for a surprise.The meals are usually family-style, where patrons sit at communal tables and are collectively provided unlimited amounts of food and drink, but the only caveat is that your dining selection is limited just to the items the hosts have prepared for dinner.This atmosphere creates a festive dining experience promoting conversation and good times for all, particularly when the first carafe of excellent Spanish, red wine is served up in boundless quantities for everyone at your table.
After a simple salad of lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes, followed by an incredibly delicious dish of beef tongue, I had never experienced anything like it before.My Basque hosts enjoyed this delicacy as much as their ancestors did.I had no idea of the delicacy I would soon be enjoying when I was a teenager.I would finally appreciate that tongue was a high quality organ meat that had been eaten by humans from the very beginning.
The top photograph shows the inside of a jawbone from a wildebeest or a hartebeest.The artifact was found in East Africa and has been dated to 2.5 million years ago.There is a small scratch on the inside surface of the jawbone in the photograph.This scratch has been magnified and then magnified again in great detail with a scanning electron microscope.
The archaeological record for stone age hominids and hunter gatherers shows that tongue removal and consumption in prey mammals was a common practice.In just four short decades, American buffalo hunters slaughtered bison almost to the point of extinction, reducing their numbers from an estimated 30 million to less than 1,000 animals..5-5.
Figure 1.There is a stone cut mark on the medial surface of an Alcelaphine Bovid mandible made during tongue removal.
The tongues of prey mammals made this organ so desirable to our hunter gatherer ancestors, even 2.5 million years ago.Why was tongue eaten raw after a kill?Why did 19th century American buffalo hunters abandon the bison carcass in order to eat the tongue?Good questions are raised by archaeological and historical evidence.The questions could have been answered in the past 50 years with the development of modern analytical instruments.You will soon learn that tongue content has not been analyzed.
The United States tongue is rarely eaten except in ethnic dishes, such as the Basque dinner I enjoyed.Most of us in the western world are missing out on this delicious organ meat.The first time I tasted tongue was at the Overland in a brilliant tomato and green pepper sauce recipe.I didn't know that the soft, tasty tongue I was eating was a great cut of meat, because the outer surface of the tongue had been sliced away.
The basics of nutrition are back.Why is tongue so popular in non-westernized populations?First and foremost, it is a high fat cut of meat, but it also contains some types of fat which have proven therapeutic health effects.There is a 100 gram portion of beef, pork, lamb and caribou tongue in the table below.
The numbers at first glance don't seem to be extraordinary or remarkable to anyone other than a nutrition scientist.Let me explain.Tongue is a concentrated source of fat.Our ancestors ate tongue at every available opportunity because it contained more fat calories than muscle meat.
Fat can be consumed in unlimited quantities and is toxic at levels beyond about 35-40% of calories.The strategy of our hunter gatherer ancestors was to maximize fat intake.We need to restrict intake of lean muscle meat to our ceiling.
Our hunter gatherer ancestors realized that tongue was one of the highest fat organs in mammals and that it made them feel good.One of the ancient delicacies of humankind will be tasted if you can get over the western stigma of eating tongue.Why does tongue taste so good?Let me tell you about the first study of tongue fatty acid composition.
The tongue has never been reported in the scientific literature.According to preliminary data from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, the tongue has a healthy fatty acid profile, but also is good for human taste preferences.There is a table depicting the tongue's acid profile in two sheep breeds.
The tongue has high concentrations of monounsaturated fatty acids.Oleic acid is found in nuts and olive oil.Our research group has shown that oleic acid can be found in high concentrations in the bone marrow.Stearic acid is one of the few saturated fatty acids that lowers blood cholesterol levels.
The tongue has a delicious flavor that can be found in other animal tissues.Longer chain saturated fatty acids such as palmitic acid (16:0) are a storage fat, but animal foods with high amounts of oleic acid maintain a smooth, rich texture.Pemmican made with marrow was preferred by the North American Indians.Give beef tongue a try.You may enjoy this recipe from our kitchen.
The behavior of 2.5 million-year-old Bouri hominids.Science.The article was published on April 23, 1999.
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4.The person is white.There are observations on the butchering techniques of some aboriginal people.American Antiquity was published in 1953.
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There are 8.Remko S. Kuipers, Martine F. Luxwolda, and D.A.Janneke Dijck-Brouwer1, S. Boyd Eaton, Michael A Crawford, and Frits A.J.Muskiet.The East African Paleolithic diet has an estimated intake of fat and calories.In the Dec 2010 issue of Brit J Nutr, there is a paper.
There are 9.Rudman D, DiFulco TJ, GalambosJT, SmithRB, and WarrenWD.Normal and cirrhotic subjects have high rates of synthesis and excretion of urea.J Clin Invest was founded in 1973.
10.TheNutritional value of cooked offal is derived from free-range rams reared in South Africa.Meat science2013 Mar;93(4): 699-702
11.There are implications for reducing diet-related chronic disease from the analysis of wild ruminant tissues.The 2002 edition of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.Full_width
The Paleo Diet team is led by a graduate student who has more than a decade of nutrition and physiology expertise.