Calf's brains, or cervelle de veau, is a traditional delicacy in Europe and Morocco. It is the brain of a calf consumed as meat. It is often served with tongue, sauteed with beurre noir and capers, or mixed with scrambled eggs (a traditional breakfast dish in the United States).
In Italy cervella fritte is a popular dish made of bite-sized batter-fried morsels of beef brain.
Beef brains have a mushy texture and very little inherent flavor and are typically flavored with sauces such as chile sauce and Sauce ravigote. The consumption of beef brains and spines is restricted in many locales because humans may contract Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (commonly known as mad-cow disease), by eating the nervous tissue of diseased animals. Still, there have been few such cases in areas where bovine spine and brains are eaten.
Famous quotes containing the words calf and/or brains:
“Were all the worshippers of the gold calf to memorialize me and request a restoration of the deposits I would cut my right hand from my body before I would do such an act. The gold calf may be worshipped by others but as for myself I serve the Lord.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“For brains there is no substitute.
“Unless it’s sweetbreads,” you suggest
With innuendo I detest.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)