🤢 Frankly Gross
Brains, udders, songbirds and whole heads. You would survive these. You would remember them.
34 recipes, worst first.
Opossum, roasted whole
“Scald with lye, scrape off hair, and dress whole, leaving on head and tail.” Served with an apple or a sweet potato in its mouth.
The Dixie Cook-Book · 1883
Canker in the Mouth (frog butter)
Boil a pound of butter, add “four common green frogs,” cook until dry, stir in alum. For canker of the mouth, throat or stomach. Said to be infallible.
The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor · 1851
Porpoise
Cassell's files the porpoise under fish, soaks the pieces, and fries them with bacon. It is not a fish.
Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery · 1912
Peacock
“Kill a peacock by thrusting a quill into his brain,” roast it, re-dress it in its own feathered skin on iron wires, and set burning camphor in its beak at table.
Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery · 1912
Terrapin, a la Maryland
Boil it whole, “draw out nails from feet,” discard the gall bladder and sand bags — but the liver and the small intestines stay in.
The Story of Crisco · 1913
To Cook Turtles
“Drop four turtles into boiling water, and boil one hour,” then skin the legs and feet, return them to fresh boiling water for another hour and a half, and finish with Madeira.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia · 1879
Turtle Garnish
A soup garnish of mushrooms, truffles, brains, beef palates, olives, gherkins and chicken quenelles, warmed through in the turtle liquor.
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf · 1896
Calf's Head en Tortue, Dressed
Half a calf's head, boned and simmered three hours in acidulated white stock, garnished with large cockscombs and topped with the ear, skewered upright.
The Epicurean · 1894
Mock Turtle à la Marion Harland
A calf's head dressed as turtle, garnished with imitation turtle eggs: boiled yolks rubbed with the calf's boiled brains, bound with raw egg, “rolled into little marbles with floured hands.”
The Butterick Cook Book · 1911
Turtle — notes about using fresh turtle for soup
“The turtle must be put in straw in the cellar and given water every 2 or 3 hours. It should be beheaded at night, and left hanging neck downwards.” Then dress the fins like calf's head.
The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie · 1909
Larks in Onions (Italian Recipe)
Eight larks boned and baked inside four Spanish onions, then glazed and served with the heads put back on — “from which the eyes should be removed.”
Mrs. Beeton's All About Cookery · 1907
Woodcock, roasted
“He is never drawn, and every morsel of him is eaten, to the last entrail.” Roasted over toast that catches the trail, which is then spread and served.
Kettner's Book of the Table · 1877
Oreilles d'Agneau à la Marquise (Lambs' Ears)
Lambs' ears stewed and served upright on a border, “with a peeled plover's egg in each ear,” cocks' combs and cream sauce in the centre.
Menus Made Easy · 1907
English Sparrows as Food
Trap the sparrows, poison the wary ones — then cage-fatten the rest on table scraps and “place the thumb nail at the base of the skull and dislocate the neck.”
Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book · 1914
Roast Doe-Birds
“Singe, draw and truss six fine, fat doe-birds.” Doe-bird was market slang for the Eskimo curlew, a species not reliably seen since 1963.
The International Cook Book · 1906
Brain-paste sandwich filling
A brain paste, cooled, spread between rounds of bread fried in clarified butter and warmed over hot water. Filed under “dainties.”
Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties · 1911
To Make Brain Cakes
Blanched brains beaten with egg yolk, cream, parsley and butter, fried light brown, and recommended as a garnish for calf's-head hash.
The British Cookery Book · 1864
Braised Calf's Head (with Calf's Head, Financiere)
Bone the head, stuff it with veal and bacon forcemeat, sew it up and stew four hours. The Financière scalds and stuffs the ears and crowns the whole with cockscomb skewers.
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf · 1896
Calf's Head Pudding
Boil the skinned head five or six hours “until the bones are ready to drop out,” pick it fine, bind with eggs — then “lay the brains all over the top and bake.”
Housekeeping in Old Virginia · 1879
Snail-and-Frog Broth
Francatelli's invalid broth: two or three garden snails, “the hind-quarters only of two dozen stream-frogs previously skinned,” bruised together and simmered with turnip and saffron.
Meals Medicinal · 1905
Snails à la Bordelaise (Lazzarini)
“Put ten pounds of snails in a covered barrel and keep for ten days.” Then salt, vinegar, and stirring “until a foam rises.” All of it alive.
Bohemian San Francisco · 1914
Boiled Calf's Udder for French Forcemeat
Stew the udder, pound it in a mortar, rub it through a sieve. Beeton lists it as one of the three things French forcemeat is made of.
Mrs. Beeton's All About Cookery · 1907
Udder, Beef
Udder “gently simmered in broth or water, then sliced, and served with onion or tomato sauce.” Salted and eaten cold, if you prefer.
Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery · 1912
Fresh Fowl's Blood in Warm Lemonade
For wasting and prostration: fresh fowl's blood “mixed with warm wine, or milk, punch, warm lemonade, or coffee… before its coagulation ensues.”
Meals Medicinal · 1905
Frog Salad
“One pound white, medium sized frogs” as the salad meat, with artichokes, potatoes, hard-boiled eggs and a French dressing.
Ninety-Nine Salads and How to Make Them · 1897
Ox Palates Rolled and Stuffed
Ox palates “slowly simmered many hours,” pressed under a weight, skinned, rolled around quenelle stuffing and glazed.
The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie · 1909
Squirrels En Casserole
Jointed squirrels layered with salt pork, corn and lima beans, the pot luted shut with a paste of flour and water, and left for four hours.
How to Cook in Casserole Dishes · 1912
Squirrel Pot Pie
“Prepare squirrels as rabbits, cut in pieces, flour and fry brown.” Stew an hour, lay biscuit rounds on top, boil fifteen minutes covered.
Modernistic Recipe-Menu Book · 1929
Four Cockscombs
Four cockscombs, blanched and skinned, with veal or chicken quenelles in a white sauce, filled into puff pastry at the last moment.
High-Class Cookery Recipes · 1906
Crabs (to boil)
“They should be boiled alive, being plunged into cold water” and heated slowly — deliberately, so they do not “throw off their claws by a violent jerk.”
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf · 1896
Haggis, the Edinburgh prize receipt (Meg Dods)
“Clean a fat sheep's pluck… letting the windpipe lie over the side of the pot to permit the phlegm and blood to disgorge from the lungs.” A prize receipt.
Kettner's Book of the Table · 1877
Roasted Snipes
Bone the snipes, stuff them with pork and mushroom — then “fry the trails of the snipes with three chickens' livers… pound and pass them through a fine hair-sieve.”
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf · 1896
Cleaning Codfish
“Cod is crimped by being cut up and notched with a knife while partly alive; but some cooks object to this.” Oscar records the objection and the method.
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf · 1896
Toulouse Ragout
“Prepare half a dozen fine, large cockscombs” with sweetbreads and truffles in a drawn-butter sauce. A San Francisco banquet centrepiece.
Bohemian San Francisco · 1914