To Make Brain Cakes

Calf or sheep brains beaten with yolk and cream and fried into cakes of a nice size.

From: The British Cookery Book
Published: 1864
Also printed in: 1 other book
Yikes Scale: Yikes

Exactly as printed, 1864

452. Blanch the brains of a calf or sheep, and beat them up with yolk of egg, a spoonful of cream, some pepper, salt, a little butter and some chopped parsley. Lay them in your frying-pan in cakes of a nice size and fry a light brown. Drain, before serving them, on paper or a cloth. They may be used alone or as an accompaniment to calves' head hash, &c.; or for croquettes, the brains may be blanched and beaten up with a little parsley and sage, some bread crumbs, moistened with cream, salt and pepper to taste, and a beaten egg to bind them; form into round or oval balls, and fry a light brown. Serve in a napkin.

The British Cookery Book, 1864. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Calf brain is specified risk material under BSE controls and is excluded from the food supply across the West. Frying “a light brown” leaves the inside barely set, but even a hard fry would not matter — prions are not destroyed by cooking.

Sheep is not the way round it. Sheep and goats have their own transmissible spongiform encephalopathy in scrapie, and the same controls apply.

Notes from the 21st century

The blanch is a texture step. Brains are soaked, membraned and blanched to firm them before any further cooking. It has nothing to do with safety.
It was garnish, not main course. The cakes went round a calf's-head hash. Even at the time, brains were a trimming rather than the centre of the plate.
Pork and lamb brains are still eaten. In many cuisines, under local rules. The specific prohibitions attach to bovine material and to sheep above certain ages.

Also in this book

Mutton Custard for Bowel Complaints or Consumptive — Two ounces of shredded mutton suet boiled in a pint of milk, three or four times a day.
To Make White Wine Whey — Milk, sherry, lemon and fifteen grains of purified nitre — half on getting into bed, the rest ten minutes later.
Toast Sandwiches for Invalids — Two slices of bread and butter, with a slice of toast in the middle.

Don't take our word for it. The complete book is online, free and searchable.

Read the original page →

More that is frankly gross

See all

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.

🤢 Frankly Gross Iffy

Meals Medicinal · 1905

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.

🤢 Frankly Gross Big yikes

The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor · 1851

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.

🤢 Frankly Gross Iffy

Bohemian San Francisco · 1914