- Comment From SF
1-17-4
-
- Idiots like this deserve to get mad cow. By the way,
after that study came out in Scotland about how horribly toxic the farmed
salmon there was (with the recommendation that people eat no more than
two ounces a month), sales were UP 9-20% across the UK! People just don't
care about their health.
-
-
- Cow Brain Sandwiches Still On The Menu
-
- CNN.com
1-17-4
-
- EVANSVILLE, Indiana (AP)
-- Fear of mad cow disease hasn't kept Cecelia Coan from eating her beloved
deep-fried cow-brain sandwiches.
-
- She's more concerned about cholesterol than suffering
the brain-wasting disease found in a cow in Washington state last month.
-
- "I think I'll have hardening of the arteries before
I have mad cow disease," said Coan, picking up a brain sandwich to
go during her lunch hour this week. "This is better than snail, better
than sushi, better than a lot of different delicacies."
-
- The brains, coated with egg, seasoning and flour, puff
up when cooked. They are served hot, heaping outside the bun.
-
- The sandwiches trace their heritage to a time when immigrants
to southern Indiana wasted little after arriving from Germany and Holland.
Some families have their own recipes passed down through generations.
-
- Their time-honored delicacy now carries new dangers after
a single cow was diagnosed with mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy,
at a dairy farm in south-central Washington state. The case, announced
December 23, was the first in the United States.
-
- Since then, there's been little evidence of consumers
turning away from beef, although humans risk developing a brain-wasting
illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, if they eat contaminated beef
products.
-
- Mad cow disease won't scare this crowd, said Coan, 40,
a bank teller who likes her brain sandwich served with mustard and pickled
onions.
-
- "You're going to die anyway. Either die happy or
you die miserable. That's the German attitude, isn't it?" Coan said.
Long considered a delicacy
-
- The delicacy is served at German-heritage restaurants
such as the Hilltop Inn, a former stagecoach stop in this Ohio River city
that opened in 1837. The sandwiches are also popular at events such as
Evansville's fall festival, where vendors typically sell out early.
-
- The sandwiches could become harder to find after the
U.S. Department of Agriculture banned the selling of brains of cattle older
than 30 months.
-
- The 30-month cutoff is used because the incubation period
for cattle to develop the disease ranges from months to many years, said
Denise Derrer, spokeswoman for the Indiana State Board of Animal Health.
-
- Some meat suppliers have stopped selling the cow brains
completely.
-
- Since they opened in 1916, butchers at Dewig Brothers
Meats in Haubstadt, Indiana, north of Evansville, saved the brains to sell
for $1.50 to $2 a pound.
-
- The decision to halt such sales means customers will
have to switch to pork brains, which are smaller and more difficult to
cook, owner Tom Dewig said.
-
- Consumers, however, are not likely to taste the difference.
-
- "The taste is really carried in the batter,"
Dewig said.
-
- Brain-based dishes are not limited to Indiana. Across
the Ohio River in Kentucky, squirrel brain served with fried eggs was once
considered a rural delicacy. The popularity declined, however, after researchers
found a possible link between eating squirrel brains and contracting mad
cow.
-
- In California, cow brains are commonly sold as taco filling
and called by their Spanish name, "sesos." In some Texas border
towns, barbacoa, made from the cow's head and brain, is served during the
holidays.
-
- It will take more than one case of mad cow disease, however,
to keep Nick Morrow, a 45-year-old Indiana pipe-fitter, from eating the
brain sandwiches he's enjoyed since childhood.
-
- Morrow talked friend Scott Moore into eating at the Hilltop
Inn just so he could have one. Mad cow disease was far from his mind.
-
- "Well, I haven't won the lottery yet, so I don't
figure I'll get that," Moore said as a hot brain sandwich sat on a
plate before him.
-
- Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
-
- http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/01/16/brain.sandwich.ap/index.html
|
