Welcome to my New Blog

Hey Offal Fans

I’m very excited to bring you this brand new blog about all things offal, otherwise known as organ meats, or as I like to say; ‘Mother Nature’s Superfoods’.

These superfoods are currently out of favour and sadly scoffed at by most of the general public.

This will not do!

Crazy Times

As an aside, I’ve created this website and writing this post during strange times that I thought only happened in movies; I, along with the rest of the world are self-isolating due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic.

I’m fortunate enough that I can work from home, where some are on Furlough getting paid 80% of their wages from the government. With others facing unemployment as a result of this unfortunate situation slowly crippling the economy.

We’re told to stay at home to prevent the spreading of the virus. I could, of course, veg out on the sofa, binge-watching Netflix, but there’s only so much Stranger Things I can watch before I feel like a Jabba the Hut dribbling and wasting my life away.

So, I decided to finally take the plunge and create this blog that I’ve been procrastinating over for far too long. I’ve finally run out of excuses, onwards and upwards.

What’s It All About?

My mission for this blog is to bring organ meats back to the British plate as it once was. Go back a couple of generations and our grandparents and great grandparents were eating liver and bacon, faggots, steak and kidney, tripe among others on a regular basis.

Organ meats are the most nutritious foods on this planet, they’re mother nature’s superfood packed full of vitamins and minerals. I’ll be writing about the nutritional goodness different organ meats have to offer as well as looking in detail at why these essential nutrients are so important for good health.

Where Did Our Love For Organ Meats Go?

At this point, I don’t know for sure. I assume it was lost with the tradition of home-cooked family meals and the introduction of convenient fast food and microwave meals. This is something I’ll investigate, perhaps when you read this there will be a blog post covering this subject.

All I know is that when I talk about eating liver, kidneys and heart or brains, people start to squirm and turn their snouts up at the thought of it. They’re happy to chow down a leg of a lamb, gobble up the belly of a pig, or even parade around with the skin of a cow on their feet but for the love of God, keep the offal away!

And please don’t remind me that my sausages are encased in pig’s intestines, you’re putting me off my breakfast.

It’s a shame but there’s a bright side to all of this – organ meats are as cheap as fried potato sticks because no one wants them other than our dogs – the lucky hounds.

Oh, and when asking for offal at the butchers, please be prepared for the question “is it for your dog?”. This happens to me regularly… my daughter Molly finds this hilarious.

What Else?

I will be hunting for recipes and trying them out myself… I’m no chef so that’ll be interesting. As well as seeking out restaurants that serve up this elusive food.

Trying to find sources for some of the more specialist organ meats can be a challenge so I’ll be hunting down suppliers from local to online butchers, farms and specialist food suppliers and rating them, building up a list for you to take advantage of.

I may go a little off-piste and even a little controversial at times depending on what’s going on in the world or how the mood takes me at that time.

I Have A Confession

This bloggin’ thang is all very new to me – I won’t pretend I know what I’m doing. I’ll be figuring it out as I go along, learning from mistakes. If you see anything you think I can improve or subject you’d like me to write about, please let me know. Any constructive criticism will be welcomed, blog ideas considered and complements gratefully received – of course.

In all honesty, I’m not sure if anyone, other than me, will ever read this. So, if you are reading this…

…Wow, amazing!…

…thanks for taking an interest. My hope is that it offers at least a small morsel of benefit to you.

Even if you want to say ‘hey Jim’, that’d make my day and I promise I’ll say hey back, that’s my Offaly Good promise.

Have a nutritious day!

There you have it! Just a reminder that I’m no doctor, dietitian or any other profession for that matter. I’m simply a bearer of information for you to do what you want with; question it, research it, erase it from your mind, you are in charge of you.