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Calf's Chitterlings, Fraise, or Crow
These are the different names given to the fat round the stomach of the calf, and in some parts they form a favourite dish. They may be served in two or three ways. First wash and cleanse them thoroughly. Lay them in salt and water for a night, place them in boiling water for a quarter of an hour, then dip into cold water, and drain them. Cut them into small pieces, and put them into a saucepan with a little stock, two or three slices of bacon, an onion, a bay-leaf, and salt and pepper. Let them simmer gently, and when done place them on a hot dish, reduce the gravy, thicken it with a little flour, add vinegar and sliced cucumber, and serve as a sauce. Or, prepare as above. After being boiled a quarter of an hour, dip the pieces into a little batter, and fry them in boiling dripping until they are a light brown, then serve with fried parsley. Or, prepare as above. After being boiled for a quarter of an hour rub them over with butter, and bake in a good oven.
This is an offal preparation of the fatty membrane (mesentery and caul) surrounding a calf's stomach, given three finishes from a single base preparation. Most of the work is in the cleaning and the long soak; the cooking itself is straightforward.
- SourcingCalf's crow is not a supermarket item and has to be ordered from a butcher who breaks down whole veal, and in many places is not sold at all. Caul fat is the nearest thing still widely available, though it is thinner and richer than the mesenteric fat the recipe means.
- The soak is not optionalThe overnight salt-and-water soak draws blood and slackens the strong smell that fat from the digestive cavity carries. Skipping it produces something most modern palates will reject outright. Change the water once if you can.
- "A quarter of an hour" in boiling waterThis is a blanch, not the cooking. The cold-water dip that follows firms the fat so it can be cut into neat pieces without tearing.
- No simmering time is givenThe stewed version needs roughly 1.5 to 2 hours at a bare tremble to become tender. Judge by texture, not the clock: it should yield to a spoon but still hold its shape.
- "A good oven"For the baked version read a hot oven, somewhere in the region of 375-425F (190-220C), enough to crisp and colour the buttered surface. No time is given in the recipe; judge by colour and turn the pieces once.
- DrippingBeef dripping was a common frying medium of the period and gives the right flavour, but any fat with a high smoke point will do. "Boiling dripping" means shimmering hot, around 350-375F, not literally boiling.
- Fried parsleyWhole dry sprigs dropped into the same hot fat for a few seconds, until they stop hissing and turn brilliant green. Wet parsley will spit violently; dry it thoroughly first.
- The sauceReducing the cooking liquor and adding vinegar and cucumber is the point of the first version. The sharpness cuts fat that is otherwise cloying, so do not stint on the vinegar.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. It is rich enough that a small portion goes a long way, so it suits a first course better than a main.
The three names in the title all point to the same thing by different routes. Chitterlings is the old English word for entrails, most often applied to pig's intestines but used more loosely for any of the offal of the gut. Fraise comes from the French fraise de veau, the calf's mesentery, the frilled apron of fat and membrane that suspends the intestines. Crow is a dialect term, recorded in various parts of Britain for the mesentery or caul. That all three names should be recorded, with the note that "in some parts they form a favourite dish," suggests this was regional rather than national food, a butcher's-shop item eaten near where the animal was killed. The three treatments offered here follow the logic of the period exactly: stew it with bacon and aromatics, batter and fry it, or butter it and bake it.