Deep-fried cow brain sandwiches
from AP
referred by alert reader Thomas Pain(e)



EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Fear of mad cow disease hasn't kept Cecelia Coan from
eating her beloved deep-fried cow brain sandwiches.

She's more concerned about what the cholesterol will do to her heart than
suffering the brain-wasting disease found in a cow in Washington state.

"I think I'll have hardening of the arteries before I have mad cow disease,"
said Cecelia Coan, 40, picking up a brain sandwich to go at the Hilltop Inn
during her lunch hour. "This is better than snail, better than sushi, better
than a lot of different delicacies."

The brains, battered with egg, seasoning and flour, puff up when cooked.
They are served hot, heaping outside the bun.

They are traced back to a time when southern Indiana newcomers from Germany
and Holland wasted little. Some families have their own recipes passed down
over the generations.

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Brain Sandwiches Still on Some Menus
Thu Jan 15, 3:30 PM ET Add Strange News - AP to My Yahoo!

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Fear of mad cow disease hasn't kept Cecelia Coan from
eating her beloved deep-fried cow brain sandwiches.

She's more concerned about what the cholesterol will do to her heart than
suffering the brain-wasting disease found in a cow in Washington state.

"I think I'll have hardening of the arteries before I have mad cow disease,"
said Cecelia Coan, 40, picking up a brain sandwich to go at the Hilltop Inn
during her lunch hour. "This is better than snail, better than sushi, better
than a lot of different delicacies."

The brains, battered with egg, seasoning and flour, puff up when cooked.
They are served hot, heaping outside the bun.

They are traced back to a time when southern Indiana newcomers from Germany
and Holland wasted little. Some families have their own recipes passed down
over the generations.

A little mad cow hysteria won't scare this crowd, said Coan, 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.

The local delicacy is served at area German-heritage restaurants like the
Hilltop Inn, a former stagecoach stop in the Ohio River city that opened in
1837. They're also popular at annual festivities like Evansville's fall
festival, where they typically sell out early at church booths.

The only thing that will stop many of the sandwich's fans from buying them
is its availability. New rules from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (news
- web sites)'s Food Safety and Inspection Service will ban selling brains of
cattle 30 months or older.

The 30-month cutoff is used because the incubation period for cattle to
develop the disease is many months to many years, said Denise Derrer,
spokeswoman for the Indiana State Board of Animal Health.

But some Evansville-area meat suppliers, such as Dewig Brothers Meats in
Haubstadt, have stopped selling the cow brains completely. Since it opened
in 1916, the supplier had saved the brains to sell to individuals and
restaurants. The going price was from $1.50 to $2 a pound.

The decision means customers will have to switch to pork brains, which they
tend to not like as much because they are smaller and more difficult to work
with, owner Tom Dewig said.

Consumers, however, are not likely to tell the difference.

"The taste is really carried in the batter," Dewig said.

Although some people consider eating cow brain an area novelty, it is not
just limited to Indiana, Dewig said.

In California, in cities such as Stockton, cow brain is commonly sold as
taco filling and sold from trucks. They are referred to by their Spanish
name, "sesos."

In Texas border towns, barbacoa, made from the cow's head and brain, is
served during the holidays.

Across the Ohio River in Kentucky, eating squirrel brain served with fried
eggs was once considered a rural delicacy in some parts. Its popularity
declined, however, after researchers in 1997 found a possible link between
eating squirrel brains and contracting mad cow.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, eats holes in the
brains of cattle and is incurable. Humans can develop a brain-wasting
illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (news - web sites), from
consuming contaminated beef products.

Federal officials said after the case of mad cow was detected Dec. 23 in
Washington state that the meat supply was safe.

The cow brains would have to be cooked to about 1,200 degrees to kill the
rogue proteins called prions that cause the disease, said Derrer of
Indiana's animal health board. That temperature is more than double that of
deep frying.

It will take more than one case of mad cow disease, however, to keep Nick
Morrow, a 45-year-old pipefitter from Evansville, from eating the brain
sandwiches he's enjoyed since a child.

Morrow talked his buddy, 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 cow brain sandwich cut in half sat on a plate before
him.

posted by prof_booty | 11:42 AM