"Old fashioned" Foods You Admit you Like

Duck gizzards are fairly common on regional salads here in southwestern France, but I don't know how to prepare them. I once bought some but we could have played ping-pong with them after I had finished, so I have never tried again.

I don't think it was on this thread that the gizzards came up. Nobody has said they are old-fashioned, as far as I know. Sorry to have confused people. I just saw Fieldgate's post and was reminded of his comment about eating chicken stomachs and the thought occurred to me that he must have meant gizzards.

I should have done a search for the right thread. I apologize again for the confusion.

From what I understand, having looked at English and Polish websites, gizzard is part of the lower stomach of birds. That's also what I had in mind saying "chicken stomach".
Frankly, I'm completely ignorant about how a bird, or chicken in particular, is built inside, and especially about the distinction bewteen stomach/gizzard.

All chicken or duck gizzards,stomach,liver,intestines are often used in Chinese cooking especially in savoury stews and stir frys with vegetables,fungi.and meat.
The particular "gizzard" referred to in #114(Vinny) involves a considerable amount of labour to clean,trim and slice just to recover a tiny morsel of tough chewy/crunchy bit of morsel.
Usually stir fried with other chicken/duck innards,cut vegetables,mushrooms and sliced pineapples.Quite common in soy sauce based stews as well.
Have never seen or heard of any horse meat in any of our local wet markets,butchers or supermarket groceries.
Nutrex(#116),your mention of "red tailed hawk" being fed with horse meat brought back memories of the numerous other raptors which we rescued,rehabilitated and released back into the wild out here.
They ranged from insect/lizzard consuming pygmy falconets to huge hawk eagles which were fed on chicken,wild fowl,wild boar,goat meat and even prime beef but never horse meat:))

To Fieldgate at #123: Like you, I have no idea how a chicken is "built," but I remember that the gizzard was part of what you got when you bought a fresh chicken when I was a child. I think that the corner butcher had live chickens in cages behind the store (a high fence prevented you seeing into the yard) and that he killed and gutted them somewhere out of sight at the back of the store. I remember eating the heart on at least a few occasions, but it was my mother who ate the gizzard. It was all part of the Sunday noontime meal: salad, chicken soup with noodles, and chicken.

Now that I think back to that time, my mother, aunt, and grandmother always referred to the gizzard as the pupikel+, a diminutive of the Yiddish +pupik. The word actually means navel, but was (still is?) in common use as meaning gizzard. Or other parts, too, if we can trust this source.

Chicken digestive system A sketch, not blood & guts, with explanation of what each part does.

The stomach is a two-parter. The first part, called the proventriculus is chemical--enzymes & acids start the process. The next part is the gizzard, which mechanically grinds up the food. The chicken will ingest sand, grit or small stones which end up it the gizzard & help with grinding the food. That's why gizzards need to be cup open & cleaned. The proventriculus is usually not included with the giblets that are sold with poultry.

Around here, you can buy gizzards, gizzards hearts, and liver. Most markets have liver; not all carry gizzards or gizzards hearts.

With turkeys, especially, I like to make giblet gravy. Since I don't like liver, I use the heart & gizzard and the cats get the liver. Some people also add cooked meat from the neck, but I prefer to use the neck for stock.

Some people also add cooked meat from the neck

That reminds me: my mother also ate the neck. She would have retrieved it from the pot in which it had been one of the ingredients in making the chicken soup. It turns my stomach to think of it now.

NA #128
>That reminds me: my mother also ate the neck.... It turns my stomach to think of it now.

And I thought the meat from the neck of chicken was one of the best parts, delicate and tender. Shame it's in such small quantity.

nutrax, thanks for the link.- it's glandular and muscular, two stomachs. Learnt something new.

Favored morsels of chicken in my family included the liver, heart (my favorite), gizzard neck and the part that crossed the fence last (know by a rather derogatory name).

Now for course the oyster is high on my list of favorite chicken morsels.