I like meat and I eat it, almost every day. But there’s this nagging voice inside of me that says I’m not a real, true-blue carnivore because I’m not committed enough to the whole animal. I don’t hunt or farm so most of the meat I buy comes from the grocery store. It’s all there at my convenience – aisles of sanitized, refrigerated plucked chickens, quails, turkeys and ducks, cuts of beef, lamb and pork and pre-sauced ribs, meatloaf mix and neatly formed hamburger patties. It’s wrapped so tightly in plastic so it doesn’t smell and it even sits on a diaper-like pad that’s there to absorb any blood or fluid that could possibly remind me that meat actually does comes from what was once a living, breathing creature.
There’s rarely a pig’s cheek or lamb tongue to be seen and the heart and liver of any bird is neatly packaged and placed inside of its emptied, clean body cavity. There are a lot of parts missing and unaccounted for. So as a reconciliation of sorts, I want to try and bridge that gap, to honor in my small way, the entire animal and start using those bits, quaintly referred to as ‘variety meats’. Fergus Henderson, a cookbook author and restaurateur calls this ‘nose to tail eating’ and I figure a good, solid place to start is with the bones.
Crosscut veal or beef shank bones are full of marrow – it’s that white, luxuriously soft fatty stuff inside of them. Once you get them from the butcher, use them within a day or two. I sat with my plate of roasted bones and used anything I could to get at the marrow – a chopstick, a fondue fork, a finger and ended up sucking on them once they were cool enough. I’ve since learned that there’s a piece of flatware called a ‘marrow scoop’ which is an elegant, long spoon designed specifically for digging in. When marrow is spread on toast it’s a classic, old-fashioned comfort food, found more commonly in British pubs and restaurants than here in the States. Traditionally, the ends of the bones are capped with a thick flour paste, so the marrow doesn’t leak out while it’s baking. I followed Fergus Henderson’s recipe – spreading it on toast, topped with parsley, capers, lemon and sea salt and found it very calming. It’s also good spread on grilled bread — a large crouton — and floated in soup – like butternut squash, mushroom or a rich, hearty onion. Or it can be mixed into any kind of meatballs, to smooth them out. In French cuisine, marrow is often poached and folded into to a reduction of red wine, shallots and herbs to make bordelaise sauce.
If you’re a carnivore, it doesn’t get much more basic and primeval than gnawing on bones. I recommend trying roast marrow, if only just once. It’s really easy to make and bones are cheap. Although be prepared to enjoy its pleasures by yourself. The night I cooked it, my family took one look at what was for dinner and went out, leaving me to my own devices. It was nice of them to bring back their leftovers because now I can safely say, that marrow and cold pepperoni pizza don’t mix.
