More True Confessions: Eating the bones

[SobaAddict70]

so I suppose spare ribs are out for most of y'all

I confess I'm a bone picker too....when it comes to pork chops.

SA

[foodie52]

My mom could reduce a roasted chicken to a pile of rubble in 20 minutes flat...

[bottomlesspit]

This is an old thread, but as I was finishing off a pile of chicken bones from the Cuban Chicken Fricassee we made the other night, i.e., eating the cartilage and gnawing through the bone to get to the marrow, avian flu be damned, I was thinking to myself that I am such a freak. But then I was overcome with this warm, fuzzy, comforting feeling that I could find other bone & marrow freaks right here, where everybody knows your name, or at least your peculiar eating habits...

So here I am, bringing this thread to the top and saying thanks to all my fellow freaks for coming forward on this forum and letting me know that I'm not alone.

Group hugs, anyone?

[hathor]

There used to be a place in Chinatown (NY) where you could get a whole pan fried flounder...the tail bones would be fried and crunchy and soooo delicious. Whenever I can, when I'm making a whole fish... I crisp that tail!

[sequim]

What a great topic! Bone-eaters united.

My mother and I are the bone eaters. My sister and her husband aren't so it works out equitably at our dinners. I'm not as much of a fan of chicken bones because I don't like gristle but I will fight her for the chicken neck. But ptooey, I wouldn't touch the pope's nose with a ten foot pole - she takes that one.... And even though I don't like gristle, I will grab the gizzard and eat it up.

M favorite bones are from red meat - t-bones and lamb chops and shoulders, especially when very well carmelized. But can't really leave out pork spareribs either. Nor a crisp pork chop bone...

I don't like chicken wing tips and I've wasted many a one...I feel bad about that, knowing how many people like those.

[sml311]

Some of my favorite memories with my mom are deboning whole chicken carcasses and eating all the little bits of meat out of the neck. It always tasted soooo good!

SML

[Suzanne F]

Thanks so much for reviving this thread!

My earliest memories are of sitting in a high chair, eating the meat off chicken necks left over from soupmaking. Now (many, many years later) I love to feast on the roasted neck of birds, all sorts; the crisply fried or roasted bones of fish (which one can still get in Chinatown, thank god), and the burnt ends of lamb chops and pork ribs. And wing tips. And shrimp shells (exoskeletons, ya' know).

I'm not crazy about the cartilage, but HWOE loves it.

[Katherine]

We always gnawed meat off the bones in my family.

My MIL used to boil chicken until the meat fell off the bones, then pick it off and put it into chicken pies, leaving the cartilage for the wary to pick out. At that time, my daughter declared that her favorite part of the chicken was the knuckle.

She does not remember this, and it's no longer her favorite part.

[fifi]

I don't do cartilage but some bones are just plain fun.

One of my best little kid memories is my grandfather bringing home full size BBQ beef ribs for me. I was an early dinosaur freak and he told me they were brontosaurus bones.

[howard88]

Great topic. It really brings me back to my youth.

Whenever we ate chicken as a family of four together at the table, my mother would get a chicken bone stuck in her throat and start that choking thing.

As an adult, I like chicken bone marrow, wing tips and prime rib bones. Just love them chicken and turkey butts.

At times I will have a great snack of a turkey or chicken carcas.

Its not a pretty sight to watch but we can't deny what heredity has done to us.

[Randi]

I like wing tips too.  And, in the words of an old Steve Goodman song, fat is where it's at. ... I much prefer it crunchy to soft, though.  Cracklings, gribbenes, chicharrones...

BINGO!! I often say crispy skin in my favorite food. Is there a thread devoted to skin/cracklins/gribbenes?

If not...I would love to start one. I am truly addicted!

[ludja]

I'm curious how serious people here are with their bones (chicken, lamb, pork, beef, fish - if it once breathed, I want to know!)  I learned from my father who was very serious about stripping them bare, and then some.  He sat at the table long after the rest of us were finished and (when possible) broke down the bones into manageable pieces, put the whole piece in his mouth and did his work.  When he was finished, the bones on his plate were as clean as if they'd been sitting in the desert for a week.  When he could, he ate them or sucked the marrow out.  This was actually a very dainty, tidy process; he wasn't a "picker"; didn't get gunk all over his hands or fingernails or become savage.  In the privacy of my own home, I get pretty serious about cleaning my bones.  Probably not as delicate as my father or as thorough, but he did teach me that often the bones are the best part.  There is always a lot more meat there than you think (and some other interesting things, too), and I think it goes with my preoccupation with not wasting anything.  My boyfriend was not a good bone cleaner, and it killed me to see perfectly good tidbits getting thrown in the trash, so I often cleaned his bones too.   

What are your habits, methods, grievances, etc?

This describes my father to a T. Besides cleaning bones off of "regular" dishes like roast chicken, pork chops, rib roast, spare ribs, he is a big fan (and the only one in our household) he is also a big fan of "souse" or as it is known in Austrian dialect, "sulz"--basically pig's feet, ears, etc cooked to release gelatin and then firmed up with vinegar, salt and pepper and onions. And as you say, all done very neatly and quietly. Apparently growing up, his mom was also a bone chewer so they had to barter over the choice pieces. In our family he had no competition.

His other feat is to completely clean a lobster of all edible material--the tail fins, small legs, everything. I always feel slightly guilty to not have inherited this trait--do pretty well with lobster but leave plenty, I'm sure in other's eyes, on meat bones...

edited to add: all of our familiy, including me, like the skins and any related by-products like gribbenes or cracklings (krammeln in Austrian dialect) though.

Edited February 20, 2004 by ludja (log)

[balmagowry]

And for that matter any skin on meat. I don't understand the trend of skinless/boneless meat. There is so much flavor from the bone that seeps into the meat (and vice versa)

Not really a bone issue but something I quite enjoy. Fat! A nice piece of fat from a steak or prime rib. The minute you get it in your mouth it starts to melt and tastes llike butter...mmmmm......

Yes! My SO is Jack Sprat and I am Mrs. He will eat only what I grew up referring to as "Groozeless Excroosh," AKA perfectly lean skinless boneless tendonless meat, than which nothing, in my view, could be much duller. I OTOH can't properly enjoy any piece of meat that doesn't come with all its "naughty bits." A lovely edging of outside fat, a bit crisp and caramelized outside and meltingly tender inside and spreading flavor throughout; all those wonderful shifts of texture as you cross the membrane between one part of the cut and the next; the marvelous juiciness close to the bone; and at last the bone itself, whether hollow with actual marrow oozing forth or merely porous enough to surrender some under a determined jaw; bits of spinal cord; mmmmmmm, lovely. It's painful these days to shop for meat in the supermarkets where one can afford it; the quality is sometimes surprisingly good, but all those prepackaged cuts with the Best Part (i.e., in a chop or a shell steak or the like, the tail) removed! OK, so I'm getting more meat for my buck - but what fun is that if I have to sacrifice all the nice messy cave-man part? (Besides, I'm haunted by the image of some lucky stiff getting to feast on all those tails that should be mine by rights; worse yet, by the fear that they may be tossed in the garbage - what a waste.)

And BTW, let's hear it for so-called "inferior" cuts. Some of the best beef flavor I've ever met with is found in the lowly chuck steak and its environs. So what if it's a little tough sometimes? Not that I object to tender meat, as such; but I do like a little texture, enough at least to remind me what it is I'm eating.

SO likes his chicken skinless, boneless, damn near flavorless. Good - more skin and bones and pan-juices and gribenes for me!

But we do "lick the platter clean," in the long run, I guess.

[Mabelline]

Confirmed in my belief that the first blessing is the meat, and the second is the bones. Can't get with the cartilage stuff, but the rest is very okay. Best babysitter ever invented.

Edited February 20, 2004 by Mabelline (log)

[balmagowry]

But ptooey, I wouldn't touch the pope's nose with a ten foot pole - she takes that one.... And even though I don't like gristle, I will grab the gizzard and eat it up.

My mother and I always shared the pope's nose; whichever of us got it would eat exactly half, scrupulously nibbling along the bone, and hand over the rest. Gizzards - we all loved them, but I was low in the gizzard pecking order because for some reason I was the only one who loved the hearts and lungs, so that was the trade-off. Ah... chicken protocol....

[puhorst]

When I was a child, my parents would literally have to take the bone away from me to get me to stop chewing on it. I inherited my father's love of marrow and gristle and joint tissue. I will pick a chicken bone completely clean, and then go to town on my husband's - he won't eat anything that touches the fat or gristle, and so I volunteer to dishes on nights when we have roasted chicken or T-bone steaks, just so I can lipsmack in peace.

Thank goodness for this post... I thought I might be emotionally disturbed with have an oral fixation and a bent for destruction. well, I still might be - but at least enjoying chewing on chicken bones isn't abnormal.

[balmagowry]

Thank goodness for this post... I thought I might be emotionally disturbed with have an oral fixation and a bent for destruction. well, I still might be - but at least enjoying chewing on chicken bones isn't abnormal.

Or if it is, at least we can all be nice and abnormal together.

[Pickles]

I just don't get the gristle thing. I mean, to each his..bone...but I get anything nasty or chewy like that in my mouth and I want to just find a napkin and spit it out. Meat shouldn't crunch! Eggshells included in the "gristle" department.

[Jinmyo]

I just don't get the gristle thing. I mean, to each his..bone...but I get anything nasty or chewy like that in my mouth and I want to just find a napkin and spit it out. Meat shouldn't crunch! Eggshells included in the "gristle" department.

Oooh but gristle in a chuck roast long braised in wine with mire poix is so silky and sweet.

[tissue]

I love eating meat off the bone, especially rack of lamb and bone-in rib eye. The bone is the best part.

[Suzanne F]

Meat shouldn't crunch!

May I have your burnt ends?

[Pickles]

Meat shouldn't crunch!

May I have your burnt ends?

NO!! Now..I must say I love to nibble the crunchy ends of chicken wings, and burnt bits of meat or cheese that have stuck to the pan. But cartilege and gristle...nuh-uhhh!

[Hest88]

Mmmm, cartilage. I don't like tendon all that much (unless it's beef braised Chinese-style), but I eat all the cartilage off of bone and of course chew up the bone for the marrow. And, if the bone itself is soft enough or crispy enough I'll chomp those up as well. I just got my husband into eating the crispy beaks off of Chinese roast duck and I'm close to getting him into neck bones. Unfortunately, that will mean less for me!