Offal

Offal is the collective term for the edible internal organs of slaughtered animals, game and poultry. The most important offal are heart, liver, kidney, tongue, stomach, sweetbreads (rarely lamb sweetbreads), tripe, brain, udder and lungs. In Bavaria and Austria, the diaphragm is also offered as "crown meat". In some countries, the testicles of various animals are eaten, especially bulls and lambs. In a broader sense, offal also includes marrow as well as blood. Offal is rich in vitamins and nutrients, but is easily perishable when raw. They are an ingredient in many classic dishes and various sausages, e.g. liver sausage and black pudding; the French sausage varieties Andouille and Andouillette consist exclusively of offal.

Traditionally, after animals were slaughtered, all usable parts were processed and eaten in some way - and not only in poor households. Some of what is no longer considered edible today was once a delicacy. However, since offal was generally considered less valuable and nutritious than muscle meat, it was often given away to soup kitchens for the poor, which over time made it seem like a typical poor person's food. Against this backdrop, people who relied on offal diets were derogatorily referred to as calabash swallowers from the late Middle Ages onwards.

Today, offal is rarely used in cooking in Germany (with the exception of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate), in England and especially in the United States. Rejection is not equally strong against all offal; something that is firmly rejected by wide sections of the population may at the same time be considered a delicacy by a minority, for example sweetbreads. In the United States, offal is particularly strongly disliked and is almost a food taboo.

The majority of offal is now processed in the food industry, especially in sausage production. Direct consumption in Germany fell by more than 70 percent between 1985 and 2003, from 2.1 kg to 600 g per person per year, while meat consumption only showed a decline from around 66 kg to 61 kg in the same period.