On Food and Cooking

Brain 4–6

The word meat is used most commonly to
mean the limb-moving skeletal muscles of
animals. But skeletal muscle only accounts
for about half of the animal body. The various
other organs and tissues are also nutritious
and offer their own diverse, often pronounced
flavors and textures. The nonskeletal muscles
— stomach, intestines, heart, tongue —
generally contain much more connective
tissue than ordinary meats — up to 3 times as
much — and benefit from slow, moist
cooking to dissolve the collagen. The liver
contains relatively little collagen: it is an
agglomeration of specialized cells held
together by a network of connective tissue
that, because it experiences little mechanical
stress, is unusually fine and delicate. Liver is
thus tender if minimally cooked, crumbly and
dry if overcooked.
Unlike standard meats cut from discrete