🤢 Frankly Gross 1912

Udder, Beef

Cow's udder, simmered in broth and served sliced with onion sauce, as a plain boiled joint.

From: Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery
Published: 1912
Yikes Scale: Iffy

Exactly as printed, 1912

Beef udder may be gently simmered in broth or water, then sliced, and served with onion or tomato sauce. If liked, it may be put in salt for a couple of days before being boiled. Salted udder should be eaten cold, and vinegar and oil should be sent to table with it.

Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, 1912. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

This one will not hurt you. Udder is a normal cut in a nose-to-tail kitchen, and Cassell's treats it as unremarkable because in 1877 it was.

What changed is availability, not safety. Mammary tissue is not passed for human food under US federal inspection, so it does not reach an American butcher's counter at all.

Notes from the 21st century

Still eaten, still sold. Tettina di vacca in Italy, tétine de veau in France. It survives where the offal tradition survived.
“Gently simmered” is load-bearing. Udder is fat threaded through tough connective tissue. It needs hours at a bare tremble; a rolling boil makes it rubbery.
The salting is a second recipe. Two days in salt, then boiled and eaten cold with oil and vinegar — effectively a cured cold cut.

Also in this book

Peacock — Kill it with a quill through the brain, roast it, sew it back into its feathers, and set its beak alight.
Porpoise — “This fish is often caught at sea by the crews of vessels, and its flesh makes a pleasant change.”
Russian Mode of Preserving Fruit — Fresh fruit packed in quicklime slaked with creosote water, in a wooden box.

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

Read the original page →

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