An Argument for Entrails

Olivia Pirie-Griffiths

There’s a certain feeling that arises in me when I’m in proximity to entrails, to raw and skinned creatures at a meat market. When you check the clarity of an eyeball to see if it’s fresh, to the glistening, squelching masses that reveal themselves as the tide goes out. Have you ever read H.P. Lovecraft? These moments seem like a living mythology akin to his – they revive something in me, something I want to reach for. 

Let me be clear: this is not an argument to dissuade veganism or vegetarianism… I greatly respect those who make those decisions for ethical and health reasons. This is an argument for those who do choose to consume meat, to do it with more thought and vigour… to do it in a way that is exploratory, which allows us to see ourselves and our actions in the world, anew.

This is also simply an argument for all of us - beyond our food preferences – to revel in our animal, carnal urges, and to honour them. 

In a world of AI deep fakes, polarisation, disassociation, over-curation and self-alteration, aren’t you yearning for something ancient and real?

I’m fed up with the buzzing of technology, the hysterical whirring of progress. 

I’m sickened by the A.I. revolution and it has barely even begun. I lament the mental topography we’re leaving to rot in favour of this sleek and efficient neurological transport that ferries us from one thought to another, with no windows from which to glimpse and grasp the lay of the land as we pass.

I don’t want this. Instead, I want a world where we still have to traverse that mental topography, a world that focuses on the instinctual, raw and carnal: 

I want to notice the webbed strings of spit that form between lips and tongues when lovers kiss, glimmering sauce on pasta twizzled around a fork, the texture of fat and fish skin, the zealous clink of wine glasses that have been over-filled throughout the evening, the bulge of flesh between fingers when your thigh is grasped under the table. 

Aren’t we all horny for more? 

We all know we need less time online, more dirt between our toes and more time to let our minds wander into a state of abstraction… I don’t need to bang-on about that. I do, however, want to bang-on about how food is an interesting way to tap into our carnal selves, and with today’s extraordinary exposure to different cuisines, most of us can pursue this if we so choose. 

Like many I was pickier with food as a child, but (thanks to my father, a doctor and avid reveller in nature) I’ve always been curious and fascinated by the machinations of living creatures: the growing, the decaying, the expelling, the healing, the budding, the thriving. 

At about ten years of age I had a self-titled ‘dead collection’, a large wooden plate artfully decorated with dried fish (old pets that had died), beautiful creatures including leafy sea-dragons found on the beach and then dried, butterflies and stick insects, small bones and shells. They were wonderful.

As an adult I still collect and admire similar oddities, and often have something like a sweet potato as a table centrepiece, watching it grow tendrils slowly and change over time. It feels like curiosity incarnate to me, and curiosity is a disposition I deeply admire. Indeed, the absence of it feels like an abdication of something essential and alive, so it makes sense this curiosity should extend to the food I explore and eat. 

In the last few years I’ve lived in Lisbon, London and Australia. During this time I’ve had the privilege to try foods of many different cultures: from Portugal then west to Turkey and Uzbekistan, from Morocco’s northern shores all the way up to the tip of Scotland, and of course Australia’s exquisite seafood freshly caught and eaten right on the boat or sand. The best and most memorable meals I’ve had have almost all had entrails, or involved something often deemed ‘confronting’ in the process of eating or preparing them.

Let me share a few of these moments with you…

La Saveur de Poisson, Tangier – Reportedly Bourdain’s favourite spot in the city – serves an extraordinary meal of local delicacies: fish bone and gut soup from an old communal amphora, strawberries covered in crushed walnuts and molasses, simple but exquisite fish. You eat the fish with your hands, any cutlery they do have for the other elements of the meal is wooden and rudimentary. The simultaneous sumptuousness and moorishness of exploring the fish’s flesh, as well as eyeballs and cheeks (parts my father always told me to eat, and which are delicious) with your fingers and bringing them to your mouth to taste, feels both full of abandon and also wonderfully true to the core of what we are in this great world – human, animal, alive. It’s like eating Ethiopian Injera, Oysters from all over (please tell me you chew them), and Portuguese Percebes that squirt. I firmly believe we should all eat meals with our hands if the opportunity arises. 

The meat market, Tashkent – Not a meal, per se, but a market, the size of an arena, yet indoors whilst it’s snowing outside. This place is bulging and humming, with spinal columns on the tables, hooves akimbo, heads being hacked into – every part of a creature being used. This market sells a lot of horse meat which, for most readers here will likely be confronting, but this is humdrum life, culture and sustenance in Uzbekistan, and I respect it. I wandered around this market for hours, taking in the sights, the hustle, the smells, the daily chores… It was both extraordinary and so ordinary at the same time. Visiting this place made me keenly aware of the exquisite goat and lamb (and maybe horse) parts on my plate during my following days there. 

Camille, London – Then there’s Camille. Divine Camille. A deeply elegant restaurant on the side of Borough Market – the kind of elegance that feels like it has been inherited rather than cultivated, candles overflowing with wax, a relaxed atmosphere, beautifully warm staff and deeply thoughtful food. The first time I went there we had veal brains, sweetbreads, stuffed pheasant, lardo… I’m going there tonight and am determined to try the pig snout if it’s on the menu. 

One of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life was Venetian traditional-style liver, onions and polenta dish with oregano. So simple – essentially three ingredients – yet it was so packed with flavour, love and goodness, I felt nourished for days. 

You see, folks, there’s something special about entrails. I realise people baulk at the look and taste as it’s often unfamiliar, deeper than classic meat cuts and the texture is different… but that’s all it is – different. That’s as bad as it gets. The positives of eating entrails, however, stretch far beyond that, to overwhelming health benefits, adventure, exploration and dare I say it, an eroticism and excitement that comes with exploring unknown delicacies of the flesh. 

So I urge you to pause next time your hand scans the menu for something familiar – in an age of convenience and amorphous trends, tastes and flavours catered to the masses, resist this and be curious and alive. Try the sweetbreads and liver, chew the cartilage and eat the fat.