Mystery meat
So the other day I had tongue for lunch. It was helpfully labelled ‘lunch tongue’ on the deli counter in Safeways, as opposed to the slightly larger variety also available, which one could presumably slice up for use in delicate canap’s or incorporate into a souffl’ rather than snarfing in a sandwich. I hadn’t had tongue for a good while, probably since I was a child on (a rubbish excuse for a) holiday at my (less good) grandma’s. She was queen of the suspicious lunch product, what with her terrifying beetroot and Red Leicester combo and brown bread with butter scraped infinitesimally thin across its knobbly surface, but for some reason I never got the willies when presented with a platter of tongue and the even more mysterious ‘luncheon meat’ and/or corned beef. This was probably because I was not a fussy child and they’re actually very tasty, even when paired with a not entirely delicious Golden Vegetable Cup-A-Soup. Tongue’s just another eminently scoffable animal muscle and has an interesting close-grained texture, going nicely in a chewy fresh baguette sandwich, and yet I bet if offered to oooh, 80-90% of today’s (Western) youngsters they’d turn up their horrible little noses and demand some mechanically recovered chicken formed into amusing shapes and covered with breadcrumbs. Meat that looks like more or less like it did when it was walking around scares people, and yet beats the processed sort any which way you like for taste and generally value (unless we’re talking grim own-brand sausages). Bah humbug.
Speaking of cheap rubbish, I note that classy supermarket chain Netto are officially dissing offal. Mind you, even I don’t particularly fancy beef genitalia in my lunch.