I Don't Like Brains

    Deconstructed sheep's head with the traditional dusting of dried wild thyme

    One of the reasons I like living in Penang is that when folks booking a street food walk make a special request it's never for dishes featuring bugs or sheep balls. Food here on the island is not 'weird' or 'bizarre' (though I suppose duck blood cubes, a component of some versions of curry mee might be considered 'out there'). So when I head out the door in the morning I never have to worry that today's walk will be all about how many edible oddities we'll be consuming instead of the ingredients and food, its back story and the people who make it.

    I have nothing against offal -- working on our Turkish cookbook has turned me into a liver lover. Grilled gizzards are fab, tripe definitely has a place in Malay beef vermicelli soup and I do like blood cubes on occasion (always in northern Thailand, where they tend to be chewy and a bit smoky flavored). But I have been over travelers questing after the weirdest local food they can find since the year it became A Thing.  

    Placing the chase after the fifth quarter, or bugs, or unhatched duck eggs above all else blinds us to so much that is not known about a cuisine (outside of its home) -- and that never will be known about a cuisine because it doesn't rate the 'unusual' tag.

     Consider the Philippines, and the adventuring food travelers and writers who've visited and come away blabbering about balut and blood stew but never about sinigang, one of the country's most beloved and oft-eaten dishes. Or Turkey, where lists of must-eats invariably include chicken breast pudding -- (Chicken! In a sweet dish! So crazy!) -- but not the humble kuru fasulye, a national soul food if ever there was one.

    The flipside to my disdain (can you feel it?) for this weirdest-first manner of approaching cuisines is that I can be guilty of veering too much the other way. For instance: we were 16 months in Turkey researching our cookbook, but it was not until the last days of our final month in country that I tried kelle tandir, or roasted sheep's head.

    Turks love kelle, be it boiled and served cold, roasted and served warm or cooked in a soup. Kelle tandir is quite big in Sivas city (Sivas is both a city and a province; Turkish provinces share names with their capital cities), where every morning we passed several shops famed for their wood fire oven-roasted sheep heads, the mahogany skulls staring out of warmed display cases like sentries. In Sivas kelle is breakfast fare. I regret never trying it there. (In my defense, after big dinners in private homes comprising an often obscene number of dishes I could rarely summon a real appetite before noon. Also, few to no American home cooks are going to cook sheep's head in a wood-fired oven, so I wasn't compelled learn how to make it for the book.)

    So when two chef friends invited us to join them for a lunch of roasted sheep's head on one of our last days in Istanbul we accepted. The venue was a well-known shop in the Fish Market off Istiklal Caddesi. Service was swift; within 5 or so minutes of placing our order we each had a plate of head.

    I had expected the kelle to be served whole; I was looking forward to using my fingers to pull the tender meat from the skull the way you pull crispy skin from a whole roast chicken. ('For fish and kelle the best utensils are fingers,' a Turkish friend says). Instead it arrived deconstructed, brain (at 5 o'clock in the photo up top) and eyeball (7 o'clock) scooped onto the plate (1 serving is half a head). I had also looked forward to sampling brain (my first ever), which one of our chef friends talked up as we waited for our meal.

    Well. The meat and crispy skin were delicious, especially eaten dusted with a bit of dried wild thyme. If you like the taste of lamb you'll enjoy roast kelle. The eyeball -- meh. Chewy and springy but not a lot going on in the taste department. The brain? A big disappointment. I'd imagined spreading it on bread and savoring it like pate or lardo. It was fatty, unctuous in texture and exceedingly rich. But where was the flavor? If I'm going to eat pure fat I'd rather it be shmaltz, or the charred strip of fat that limns a nice grilled steak.

    What can I say? I don't like brain. (For what it's worth, Dave does. He devoured his.) I left most on my plate (for my friend to eat), saving room and calories for dessert at the pastane several doors down.

Kelle tandir, at Sahne Sokak 18, Balikpazari (Fish Market), Beyoglu. Till 6pm. 

Comments

[Chris]

Do love brains though supposedly high in cholesterol. I would love to sample lamb brains, have had lamb kidneys and heart. Pig brains are pretty popular in Malaysia...great with just a bit of soya sauce and pepper. Give it a go. Next offal on my list would be chicken testicles, yup, available in Box Hill market in Melbourne!

[Amanda (@lambsearshoney)]

I remember seeing a street vendor selling these in Istanbul. I wondered at the time how they were eaten - they seemed a little awkward to eat on the run.
My grandmother often cooked brains when I was a child. They, along with liver, kidneys and tripe were cheap. I didn't mind brains too much when she crumbed and fried them and I could drench them in tomato sauce (ketchup), but when she presented them palely trembling on the plate, cooked in a white parsley sauce, my nerve always failed.

[Lizzie]

Brains. Bleugh. I tried calves brains, breaded and deep fried and I really didn't like their...foamy... texture at all.

(Totally agree on this daredevil eating. Snore.)

Please tell me your book will be published in the UK too?

[Robyn]

'palely trembling on the plate' -- priceless, and kind of disgusting, imagery Amanda! I can't blame you, I wouldn't have tried them either.

Lizzie, I hope that it will be published in the UK. I imagine that our publisher will be looking for a UK publisher once they have something to show around (manuscript isn't due till Sept 1). Thanks for reading!

[Braeden]

As someone who will be soon traveling to SE Asia I want to thank you for these posts!Lets me know what I'm getting into ;)

[Kai]

I am so with you.

I'm from the Philippines, by the way, and while I occasionally eat balut, I cannot fathom that blood stew (dinuguan). But give me sinigang every day and I am a happy camper.

I am from the northern part of the country and we do have a common dish with pig's brain. It's mixed, though, with grilled strips of pork cheeks, and seasoned with kalamansi (small limes) and sliced chiles. If you're not familiar with the dish and its ingredients, you won't be able to guess what the white sauce-like thing in it, and it can be quite addicting, with rice or with ice-cold bottles of beer.

[Robyn]

Kai, if you are referring to sisig -- I love it! If it's very well-cooked and crispy it's fantastic! So I guess maybe I do like brains ... as an ingredient in a well-prepared dish. :)

[Rekha rajan]

This is too cool. We have a South Indian version of this called - "Aatu Moolai Masala"

[Susan McCarthy]

I'm so disappointed. I thought this was going to be a post about zombies.

Hey Robyn, I stumbled onto your blog a few years ago and check in periodically. I'm one of your old comrades from Liz Perry's Chinese Politics class - Susan McC. Howdy! So awesome the route you and Dave have traveled (I just looked at his blog and gorgeous photos).

I thought you might be in Singapore but I see you are now in Penang. I'll be in SIN for much of next week for a conference, but I have to return right after. Next time I will have to plan better.