On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 329

Brain 4–6 The word meat is used most commonly to mean the limb-moving skeletal muscles of animals But skeletal muscle only accounts for about half of the animal body The various other organs and tissues are also nutritious and offer their own diverse, often pronounced flavors and textures The nonskeletal muscles — stomach, intestines, heart, tongue — generally contain much more connective tissue than ordinary meats — up to 3 times as much — and benefit from slow, moist cooking to dissolve the collagen The liver contains relatively little collagen: it is an agglomeration of specialized cells held together by a network of connective tissue that, because it experiences little mechanical stress, is unusually fine and delicate Liver is thus tender if minimally cooked, crumbly and dry if overcooked Unlike standard meats cut from discrete and largely sterile skeletal muscles, many organ meats carry extraneous matter Before cooking, they’re often trimmed and cleaned, then “blanched,” or covered with cold water that is slowly brought to a simmer The slow heating first washes proteins and microbes off the meat, then coagulates them and floats them to the water surface where they can be skimmed off Blanching also moderates strong odors on the meat surface Liver The liver is the biochemical powerhouse of the animal body Most of the nutrients that the body absorbs from food go here first and are either stored or processed for distribution to other organs All this work takes a lot of energy, and this is why the liver is dark red with fat-burning mitochondria and their cytochrome pigments It also requires direct access of the liver cells to the blood, and ... that is slowly brought to a simmer The slow heating first washes proteins and microbes off the meat, then coagulates them and floats them to the water surface where they can be skimmed off Blanching also moderates strong odors on the meat surface... Blanching also moderates strong odors on the meat surface Liver The liver is the biochemical powerhouse of the animal body Most of the nutrients that the body absorbs from food go here first and are either stored or processed for distribution to... either stored or processed for distribution to other organs All this work takes a lot of energy, and this is why the liver is dark red with fat-burning mitochondria and their cytochrome pigments It also requires direct access of the liver cells to the blood, and