Chitterlings

[dcomnivore]

Where can I find great chittlings in the DC metro area? I've tried Florida ave grill, but they were disgusting. Not a bit of seasoning or gravy. Even the waiters wouldn't touch them. I'm hoping that the recent appreciation of whole animal cuisine means that someone out there knows how to cook every part of the pig. Please help!

[DonRocks]

 

You may want to switch gears and try Bangkok Garden, House of Fortune, or Nava Thai.

 

Alternatively, click here and ask to speak with the chefs - if it's mid-afternoon on a slow day, they'll probably be happy to speak with someone with such an enthusiastic and unusual request.

 

Even though it's in the Shopping and Cooking forum, you may want to poke around here as well.

[The Hersch]

I've had chitterlings twice in my life. Once was in a soul-food context, although I don't remember where the dish came from. A friend coaxed me into trying some that he'd gotten somewhere and carried out in a small polystyrene tub. The second was a plate of andouillettes in a little neighborhood bistrot somewhere in Paris, I don't remember where. The first would have been in the late 1970s, the second in the mid 1990s. I'm a fairly adventurous eater, and love many sorts of offal: liver, tripe, sweetbreads, brains. Chitterlings are disgusting.

[DonRocks]

Chitterlings are disgusting.

Doesn't this depend on cleaning and prep?

As usual, there's a pretty good overview on Wikipedia which includes various countries that feature them.

[The Hersch]

Doesn't this depend on cleaning and prep?

Could be, but I'm not going to be doing anything further to find out.

[Simon]

The chitterlings and dandelions at St. John were impeccable.  

[DonRocks]

The chitterlings and dandelions at St. John were impeccable.  

No doubt, but that's kind of a hike.

[Antonio Burrell]

As the grandson of a proud tobacco farmer and son of a man raised on all forms of hog, I grew up eating "chittlins". My mother swears I had a fondness for them as a baby, probably because they resembled pasta noodles. I remember the terrible smell that would waft from the kitchen when these were being cleaned and cooked. I stopped eating them when my Great Grandfather on my Mom's side slaughtered my pet pig and then I got to see her cleaned and etc. Everyone washes them out but I find that like almost all organ meats...soaking in milk makes them taste better. My Aunt Celestine does them the old fashioned way, Cleaned and boiled, then sauteed with onions and peppers and plenty of salt and pepper. Douse em with hot sauce and eat away.

[sheldman]

An old friend of mine, a Black lawyer in Montgomery Alabama, once told me: "You know what the trouble is with you white people?  You clean your chitlins too much."  I think he was putting me on.  But it is a taste that I have never acquired, as my overwhelming sense was "this must be what it is like to eat boiled squid in a bathroom."  (Don, feel free to delete this if you see fit!).

[weezy]

I remember flipping through channels on a Sunday morning a few years ago, and the sermon being given by an African-American preacher caught my attention:  "You don't eat just anybody's chittlin's, you gotta be careful with that".