Could you go primal?

[Jenise]

I've read a few articles about this 'movement' lately: people are eschewing modern food for the basic meats and plant foods that that our hunter-gatherer forebears had available to them. Not sure what's the point--it's basically a zero carb diet with organ meats--but hey. Personally, I'll take a pass.

http://www.nationalpost.com/life/health/Giving+primal+urge+with+paleo+diet/4113162/story.html

I always chuckle when I read about the wonder of returning to the past in a culinary manner. Most who are enthusiastic about such diets tend to forget the more negative aspects of those diets and the attendant activities that go with them (e.g. frequent donating of blood, running barefoot):

(a) They forget, for example, that the people who did live on those diets did so not out of choice but out of absolute necessity and, in many cases, poverty.

(b) In their time those diets and activities were entirely patriarchal, women being seen in Paleolithic times (or when the Mediterranean diet was so popular in Greece) as most definitely subservient.

(c) As Shel Silberstein put it so nicely: "They talk about the joy of running barefoot but they forget to mention the broken glass in the streets"

(d) In their defense of such diets (especially the one at issue here) supporters like to point out how those people rarely developed cancer. True.....most of them did not live long enough to develop cancer.

But please, tell me, if I do take up that diet does it mean that I never have to shave again?

Best
Rogov

another pass here

It says a lot about how affluent modern American society has become that frivolities such as this are possible for the well-off.

Personally, I'll stick with the modern diet that, despite all of its faults, allows us to live to an average lifespan more than double those of the Paleolithic peoples. As already pointed out, cancer was rare because nobody lived long enough to die of it.

-Paul W.

Well, that sounds just plain awful to me. I can't stand organ meats. My dogs won't touch them either. I would pass on this.

Yet another political diet. Silly.

He lost me at "no alcohol".

It is silly but I do like organ meats and take every opportunity to fix them. Sweetbreads, veal kidney, beef and pork tongue, chicken gizzards all appeal.

Liver and kidneys are not good for anybody.

[Robin Garr]

Liver and kidneys are not good for anybody.

Moderation is good, and so is offal ... in moderation.

Liver and kidneys are not good for anybody.

Especially not for the animals from whence they came.

Never liked organ meats, and never liked offal either---even though I came from a chitlins and cracklins fambly originally.

Story which I've told before:

A company I was with sponsored a trip to France. We stopped at an Autogrill restaurant between Paris and Burgundy. Tony, young guy from Chicago, was an adventurous sort and went through the chow line. He got the special of the day, andouillettes.

Took it to the table, cut a forkful lifted it (almost) to his mouth, and said, "What IS this stuff? It smells like shit!"

"Well, close anyway," said I, with a big smile.

He did not finish his plate. He did not even finish his fork full.

On a wine tasting trip to Burgundy, we stopped for lunch in Lyon and I saw andouillette on the menu. I ordered it, expecting a sausage that was a small version of Cajun andouille. There was that "Omigod! It's chitt'lin' sausage!" moment when the dish arrived. But after shifting my expectation gears a bit, it was well prepared and enjoyable. But I think I'd pass on the Autogrill rendition.

-Paul W.

[Robin Garr]

andouillettes.

Although I'm distinctly a city boy and never saw, smelled or tasted chitlins, I developed an instant affection for andouillettes the first time I ran across them in France - Southern Rhone or Provence, I think, or maybe rural Burgundy. I liked the taste, loved the layered texture and thought of the aroma more like a fine barnyardy Burg than ... well, you know. Mary never shared this appeal, though, and once whispered to me as my steaming plate was delivered, "I feel so sorry for you."

Once in Paris at a neighborhood eatery that specialized in fromages, I ordered a dish of andouillettes and Roquefort over pasta. Monsieur was distinctly dubious that the American tourist would like that, and probably feared that I'd send it back. I was finally able to convince him, though, and it was delicious. Great with a simple villages Burg.

I'm not buying Carl's "always bad for you," though. Sure, the liver is high in cholesterol, but as I said, moderation in all things including moderation itself.

Mary never shared this appeal, though, and once whispered to me as my steaming plate was delivered, "I feel so sorry for you."

I've yet to try these, but based on earlier discussions there's something about serving a "steaming plate" of them that seems....just.....I dunno.