The Elderberries by Corey Pandolph and Phil Frank and Joe Troise for June 07, 2010

I was once in a small grocery store in the Philadelphia suburbs that catered to Koreans. The meat counter had several hooves, apparently horse’s.

Unless they like to make their own Jello from scratch, I have no idea what they would do with them, and perhaps it’s better that I don’t know.

Chicken heads and feet. Hmmm!

oh, you silly ‘melickans! we boil horse hooves , make number one soup!

I’ve also seen animal heads, brains, stomachs and most of their other internal organs for sale in a Mexican butcher shop. Waste not, want not!

Er, is the Professor looking at his watch? I can’t tell. Stupid low resolution gocomics….Aside from that no complaints.

Weirdest thing I grilled was someone elses idea, but it was all the chicken skin and fat trimmings. He thought the dogs would like it, and they DID! But I doubt any human being would care to much on what we made. Maybe with a little seasoning and care they would be like the chicken version of pork rinds.

Funny that “cloven hooves” (i.e. pigs’, etc) - the very body part that the Book of Leviticus cites to forbid eating of the animal entirely - are considered edible, despite the fact that America considers itself a Bible-observing nation. Pig foot was not only eaten widely in America over many generations, but it’s still in my supermarket today.

Meanwhile, the animals permitted by the Old Testament (cows, horses, sheep) are not considered to have feet fit to eat.

Maybe there’s something in Leviticus or Deuteronomy about hooves or other animal parts, as well as animal species. Or, maybe, it’s just that society’s gross-outs evolve without regard to cultural or religious laws.

@Avon The dietary rules you mention apply only to observant Jews. Muslims have similar rules, called “halal”, but I have no idea if cloven hooved animals are permitted or not. Christians have no general religiously-based dietary restrictions, although some branches may have their own restrictions (e.g. IIRC, Mormons are forbidden caffeine and alcohol)

And, of course, if you’re an atheist or agnostic, the whole point is moot.

shytimes, LOL at how it’s “just offal”!

CoBass, I’m religious myself but it never ceases to amaze me how every religion seems to pick and choose within their own sacred scriptures! American Christians (and even more so, those in Latin America and Africa) can focus on all of the 3-5 bans on homosexuality in the Bible (all but one in the Old Testament) and call them the core of right living. Or they can advocate making the Ten Commandments the basis of public education. But simultaneously they can ignore endless other pages within the five books of the Law (literally, “Torah”) that begin the Bible. We just don’t marry our widowed sisters-in-law or leave untouched the sidecurls of our hair, despite the Bible’s clear and emphatic commands that we do so. (“Cloven hoof” is the King James version.)

And don’t forget that that Law was and is the basis of all three of the religions of the descendants of Abraham, not just Judaism. Not til well after Jesus’ time did they truly divide. I think it’s a lot of picking and choosing …