Boiled Tongue For Dinner

One of my first memories is when my mother brought home a tongue to cook for our dinner.

I was 7, maybe 8, and it was a big fat juicy cow tongue. It really isn't the kind of gourmet ingredient that makes one's mouth salivate, and definitely not when you are merely 7. 

This is possibly because it draws attention to one's own tongue, suddenly seeming quite defenceless, lying inside one's own mouth, or because it makes you think about tongues meeting tongues in an explosion of a big slobbery kissing mess with some undelightful taste sensations as a sideline. 

At 7, it was incomprehensible to me why anyone would want to indulge in something as tasteless as French kissing. I knew what mine tasted like when I accidentally bit it—not very good.

The tongue was cold, tough, and leathery. It looked sad and lonely, lying on the kitchen table, I imagined it was missing its cow. 

I'm sad it's missing its cow. Selfishly, because I really, really, really, utterly and completely don't want to have to eat some yucky old cow's tongue with veins and white goose bumps.

My mum gets the biggest pot in the house and begins to boil that tongue. I remember seeing it floating in a sea of water, possibly with a sprinkling of salt, but nothing else. Just a lonesome cow-less tongue bobbing about, like a boat ready to capsize, in gallons of water.

Is that really how you cook tongue? I remember wincing, maybe even piercing the kitchen with a scream of horror. I remember my older sister telling me I was plain old silly.

Thankfully, by some stroke of good luck, I can't
remember eating it.

For those of you who have reached the end of this page and find you disagree with my 7-year-old self and want to sample some tongue because you think it would be simply delicious, here is a delightful boiled tongue recipe, and here are some tongue-in-cheek takes on animal-free dining.

I have an active 7-year-old imagination. The type that has me chased by ghoulish monsters every night. Tonight's horror episode would definitely include giant ghostly cow-less tongues.