"Rocky Mountain Oysters" --- Noahide, kosher, considered meat?

[HomeschoolDad]

All right, friends, a question I have been wondering about for quite some time, and rest assured, it is an entirely serious question. Please stop reading right now if you are easily nauseated or are of delicate sensibilities.

This concerns what are euphemistically known as “Rocky Mountain Oysters”. There are other variations, one of those being “lamb fries”, origin self-explanatory. Same basic idea.

Rocky Mountain oysters - Wikipedia

Questions:

• Would these violate the Noahide law against eating “flesh torn from a living animal”?
• Could they ever be considered kosher?
• Could they be eaten on Fridays of abstinence, i.e., would they be considered flesh meat or offal? (I’m assuming that other offal, such as liver, can freely be eaten on Fridays of abstinence.)

Never had them, but if I were ever in a place where they were served, hey, try anything once!

Stay classy, everyone, and for the love of all God’s creatures, take a moment to consider it from the viewpoint of the poor steer. Not as bad as dying, but still, no day at the beach :surfing_man:

Eat more chikin.

 

[Vico]

…

From reading that I did to meet the kosher laws the acceptable animal must be slaughtered first, inspected, and the blood drained.

Since this is a part of a land animal, it is flesh meat, and it should not be consumed on a Christian day of abstinence from flesh meat.

 

[Kaninchen]

Could they ever be considered kosher?

No, as @Vico pointed out, the animal would need to have been appropriately slaughtered.

 

[BartholomewB]

(I’m assuming that other offal, such as liver, can freely be eaten on Fridays of abstinence.)

When you say “assuming,” do you mean it’s just your assumption or have you been told that? I have never read or heard any teaching on the subject, one way or the other, but I have always assumed the opposite, that meat is meat, and that liver or any other inner organs are to be abstained from, just like any other part of the animal.

 

[CRM_Brother]

Would these violate the Noahide law against eating “flesh torn from a living animal”?

Yes and no. It depends. If the organ derives from a castration then yes, it violates Naohide. If the organs are harvested after death then no, it is not “flesh torn from a living animal”. This can only be determined if you know the specific situation in which the organs are harvested or you harvest them yourself from your own livestock.

Could they ever be considered kosher?

Yes or no. It depends on which animals the organs are taken from. I’ve known cultures which serve pig, horse and dog versions of ‘lamb fries’ which would immediately disqualify them.

The ability to be kosher also depends upon which kosher rules you are using. Some approaches to kosher reject all meat from the hindquarters of an animal. To those who follow these approaches, all ‘lamb fries’ type dishes would be rejected. Other approaches, however, allow for the meat of animal hindquarters to be of their blood vessels through soaking and the cutting out of the major veins and arteries. This is simple on lamb fries because the blood vessels are on the outside of the organ and the membrane containing them is easily removed.

The next concern is the preparation of the lamb fries many times, a good number of the preparations use dairy in their cooking to complement their creamy texture. These methods cannot be used to prepare them to kosher standards as instruments used on meat (lamb fries) cannot be used on dairy and vice versa. Thus, they cannot be cooked together.

(post 1 of 2)

 

[CRM_Brother]

(post 2 of 2)

Could they be eaten on Fridays of abstinence, i.e., would they be considered flesh meat or offal? (I’m assuming that other offal, such as liver, can freely be eaten on Fridays of abstinence.)

Again, it depends on a lot of things.

1. Are you a Latin Catholic (Rite of Braga, the Roman, Ambrosian, Mozarabic, and Cathusian Rites)? The rules of abstinence we are most familiar with only apply to Latin Catholics. Eastern Catholics have different restrictions and traditions appropriate to their own sui iurus Church.
2. What age are you? The universal norms regulating days of abstinence for Latin Catholics only begins on their 14th birthday and lasts for the rest of their life. The abstinence from meat does not expire on their 60th birthday like the fasting obligation.
3. In what Episcopal Conference do you live? Episcopal Conferences regulate specific applications of the universal norms within their boundaries. It is at the Episcopal conference level that “meat” is defined. Within the boundaries of the USCCB, United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (The United States of America and all US Territories except Puerto Rico, which forms its own Episcopal Conference), the restrictions placed on ‘meat’ during days of abstinence only extends to ‘flesh meat’. Lamb fries are organs, thus they fall under the offal category and are allowed.
4. What diocese do you live in? Even if you live within the boundaries of an Episcopal conference which includes offal in the abstinence from meat, local bishops may grant specific or general dispensations from the Episcopal Conference mandates with regard to allowing an age limit for meat abstinence or adjusting the definition of the meat which must be abstained from.

On a side note, lamb fries are actually pretty tasty if you can get over the knowledge of what they are. There is a reason that they are called ‘rocky mountain oysters’ because they possess a creaminess that some oysters possess. I would liken them more to a good butter-poached scallop with a light lamb flavor. This is, of course, if they are cooked correctly. Nearly all offal meats are slightly trickier to cook than flesh meat because the tissue is structured differently and the cooking treatment differs from offal to offal.

 

[Kaninchen]

The more I read this stuff, the gladder I am to be a vegetarian.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

(I’m assuming that other offal, such as liver, can freely be eaten on Fridays of abstinence.)

When you say “assuming,” do you mean it’s just your assumption or have you been told that? I have never read or heard any teaching on the subject, one way or the other, but I have always assumed the opposite, that meat is meat, and that liver or any other inner organs are to be abstained from, just like any other part of the animal.

I can only say that my wife’s godmother, in Poland, sometimes would serve liver on Fridays because “it’s not meat”, i.e., not flesh, but taken from an organ. But then again, once I was there during the Easter season, and on Good Friday, she served a chicken soup, with a fillet of chicken in it, that would put one of Truett Cathy’s Chick-fil-a sandwiches to shame! I questioned this and my wife said “oh, it’s just flavoring”. Maybe the rules in Poland were different, maybe because of food scarcities under communism, the bishops there permitted such things — very often you did not eat what you wanted, you ate what you could get. I don’t know. (And I have found that Polish Catholics, while faithful and orthodox, are in some ways their own critter.)

Not to suggest that the 1917 Pio-Benedictine Code is still binding — I’m not a sedevacantist (though the 1917 CIC can be used as reference and to explore precedent) — but at this point, I’m going to pore through my old Woywod/Smith commentary, or perhaps Jone’s Moral Theology, as both tomes have some pretty “meaty” treatments of canonical and casuistic minutiae. (Irresistible pun at least partially intended!) Fun to read if you like that kind of thing.

And then there is this from CAF-Herself:

Meat and Friday's Traditional Catholicism

I believe I can eat eggs on Friday. I cannot eat the leg, thigh, breast, etc because that is meat. What about gizzards, and livers, can I eat them on meatless Fridays’confused?

I’ve known cultures which serve pig, horse and dog versions of ‘lamb fries’ which would immediately disqualify them.

Errrr… I think I’ll pass on that last one, TYVM.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

The next concern is the preparation of the lamb fries many times, a good number of the preparations use dairy in their cooking to complement their creamy texture. These methods cannot be used to prepare them to kosher standards as instruments used on meat (lamb fries) cannot be used on dairy and vice versa. Thus, they cannot be cooked together.

Obviously not. Milchig and fleishig.

In what Episcopal Conference do you live? Episcopal Conferences regulate specific applications of the universal norms within their boundaries. It is at the Episcopal conference level that “meat” is defined. Within the boundaries of the USCCB, United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (The United States of America and all US Territories except Puerto Rico, which forms its own Episcopal Conference), the restrictions placed on ‘meat’ during days of abstinence only extends to ‘flesh meat’. Lamb fries are organs, thus they fall under the offal category and are allowed.

I have heard this as well. I suppose it depends on how you define “flesh meat”. Did the USCCB specifically exclude organs and offal? (I’m assuming they didn’t get so specific as to deal with the issue in this thread, though it’s an interesting thought … one can imagine our three late-night Catholic boys, Messrs Fallon, Kimmel, and Colbert, especially the latter, having a field day with that!)

I would liken them more to a good butter-poached scallop with a light lamb flavor.

I’ve heard them described as similar to scallops in texture.

On a side note, lamb fries are actually pretty tasty if you can get over the knowledge of what they are.

A friend of my uncle’s found out “what they are” after the fact, and he had an issue with it.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I don’t recall black pudding (or its Polish equivalent, prepared with rice) as being particularly bad-tasting — let’s call it unusual — but knowing what I now know (those Poles tricked me!), I wouldn’t touch that stuff with someone else’s palate! Ewwwww…

 

[Pitcairn17]

Isn’t the more basic question here the apparent assumption in the OP that the Noahide laws apply to Catholics as such, versus those parallel precepts that derive from the 10 Commandment and the Magesterium? In what way could that possibly be true as related to abstinence regulations? And perhaps I’ve been living under a rock, but in 74 years of Catholicism I’ve never encountered the theory that somehow offal products aren’t meat.

 

[redcatholic]

So, I’ve clipped and seared and eaten Rocky Mountain oysters. And in a neighboring town there is a feed every year. They aren’t great. But ive definitely definitely done it. I don’t have the expertise to answer your question but could it matter how they were harvested? A live animal harvest vs a dead animal harvest?

 

[NevermoreLenore]

offal

I am NOT an adventurous eater AT ALL. I have issues with textures and anything I have to naw on, ie meat that doesn’t just fall apart, will induce gagging. So I enter this thread with great trepidation. My C question is thus: when eating entrails , does one cut everything open to expel the, erm, contents?

I am going to stick with my fruit, vegetable, and grain based diet, thankyouverymuch.

 

[CRM_Brother]

I have heard this as well. I suppose it depends on how you define “flesh meat”. Did the USCCB specifically exclude organs and offal? (I’m assuming they didn’t get so specific as to deal with the issue in this thread, though it’s an interesting thought … one can imagine our three late-night Catholic boys, Messrs Fallon, Kimmel, and Colbert, especially the latter , having a field day with that!)

The directive by the usccb defining ‘meat’ as ‘flesh meat’ was from 1966 and is still in effect. At this point in time, ‘flesh meat’ specifically meant muscle and incorporated fat tissue as distinct from offal meat and bone meat (marrow). These were distinctions that were widely used in butchers shops in the US at this time. Many contemporary bishops explicitly noted this distinction due to ethnic traditions of serving offal on Fridays of abstinence. At the time, offal was considered the meat of the poor because of it’s low price.

This is in keeping with the original penitential intention of abstinence. In Medieval Europe, the only animal proteins which were readily available to the common person was fish and offal. Regular flesh meat consumption was primarily reserved for the nobility. Abstinence was not meant to deprive the poor of nutrition but instead to to provide an avenue of penitence for the rich. Other practices of penitence were offered for the poor to partake in.

 

[BartholomewB]

A friend of my uncle’s found out “what they are” after the fact, and he had an issue with it.

I don’ t blame him. I think I would, too!

 

[HomeschoolDad]

My C question is thus: when eating entrails , does one cut everything open to expel the, erm, contents?

According to Southern chitlin cooks and aficionados — never tried them — you clean, and clean, and clean, until everything nasty is removed. And even then, the cooking aroma is, well, interesting. (To the uninitiated, “chitlins” is a corruption of “chitterlings”, i.e., the hog’s intestines, that are cleaned thoroughly, then cooked, fried, or what have you.) I don’t know the intricacies of what is cut and when. I am just going on the vivid descriptions I’ve heard from African Americans in my acquaintance — this is historically a predominantly AA food, the sad origin of it being that they were only allowed to keep the less-appetizing parts of the hog that the slave owners didn’t want for themselves. It certainly wasn’t anyone’s first choice.

 

[Rasoleil]

I don’t know, but there is an annual festival dedicated to Rocky Mountain Oysters and the attendees have a ball.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Isn’t the more basic question here the apparent assumption in the OP that the Noahide laws apply to Catholics as such, versus those parallel precepts that derive from the 10 Commandment and the Magesterium?

I did not make that assumption, though I can see how the OP could have been interpreted that way, and I regret the ambiguity. There are seven Noahide laws, five of them dealing with things that are sinful in Christianity as well, one of them calling for the establishment of courts of justice, and then the “icky one” about not eating flesh taken from a living animal. To my knowledge, the latter one does not bind in conscience for Christians. (Establishing courts of justice are something that any civilized society would just “do”, society wouldn’t work without them, to say “it’s a sin not to establish courts of justice” would probably fall under the rubric of rulers being duty-bound to provide for the common good. Simply put, yes, the rulers probably do sin if they neglect to establish such courts.)

In what way could that possibly be true as related to abstinence regulations?

Whether non-fleshy offal is canonically considered “meat” is the question with regard to abstinence, not whether Noahide laws are being violated.

And perhaps I’ve been living under a rock, but in 74 years of Catholicism I’ve never encountered the theory that somehow offal products aren’t meat.

And perhaps I’ve been living under a rock, but in 74 years of Catholicism I’ve never encountered the theory that somehow offal products aren’t meat.

See the USCCB regulations on this matter.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Interesting causal relationship you posit there.

In my upbringing in a humble, simple home in the upper American South, “cheese” meant American cheese, and there was no other — it existed, but it wasn’t something our family ate. Later on, we started getting some pretty basic cheeses such as Swiss (Emmentaler, though we didn’t call it that), cheddar, and colby. I didn’t know what a pizza was until I was about 10 or 11 years old, when the first pizza joint opened in town. My cousin did manage a kind-of-gourmet grocery store in our town where they carried such exotic things as Limburger, Gouda (I think), bottled mineral water before it was a thing, and gefilte fish, presumably for our town’s tiny Jewish community. These were not things my household indulged in. (We would occasionally buy rye bread as a treat.) Very simple people, very simple tastes. To this day my parents roll their eyes over “all those different cheeses you buy”.

So, I’ve clipped and seared and eaten Rocky Mountain oysters. And in a neighboring town there is a feed every year. They aren’t great. But ive definitely definitely done it

You da MAN! I imagine, however, that the steers have an entirely different opinion of you

I’ve seen them in the international grocery store in Charlotte, but that’s as close as I’ve ever come. I don’t know if the carniceria in town carries them or not. (And, yes, I’ve considered getting some and preparing them, but I don’t know if I’d just get too grossed out or not. Kind on my George Plimpton list of things to do. I’m not terribly crazy about cutting up chicken.)

The directive by the usccb defining ‘meat’ as ‘flesh meat’ was from 1966 and is still in effect. At this point in time, ‘flesh meat’ specifically meant muscle and incorporated fat tissue as distinct from offal meat and bone meat (marrow). These were distinctions that were widely used in butchers shops in the US at this time. Many contemporary bishops explicitly noted this distinction due to ethnic traditions of serving offal on Fridays of abstinence. At the time, offal was considered the meat of the poor because of it’s low price.

So the verdict seems to be that offal is okay, it’s not “meat” per the USCCB. I can live with that. Offal has never been my thing. My mother used to prepare liver and onions probably 50 years ago, and I just recall that it tasted weird and kind of starchy. I’ve had it a couple of times at our magnificent Southern cafeterias since then (Piccadilly, K&W, et al).

 

[BartholomewB]

Not only the Irish. I have known Brazilians who travelled all over Europe, only ever ordering steak and chips every day for both lunch and dinner. Never anything else, to avert the terrible danger of being served a dish with something hideously unidentifiable on it, maybe like a Brussels sprout. My mother-in-law was one of them.