Name: Italian Liver Piccata
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 3 min
Total time: 8 min
Yield: 4-5
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 1 lb beef liver; 3 T butter; 1/4 c arrowroot flour; salt and pepper; Juice of 1/2 lemon; 2 T chopped parsley

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It wasn’t always this way. In the beginning, I had to force myself to finish a serving of liver. Week after week, I’d lovingly prepare this Italian Liver Piccata (adapted from Marcella Hazan in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking), if not with some trepidation. Then I would serve it with confidence – if not a ‘fake it til you make it’ kind of confidence – to my family.

I had learned that organ meats are the foundation of a healthful diet, with liver being the most important. And I wanted a healthy family. But I didn’t grow up eating organ meats, and my mom had not said kind things about her own experience. Yet, my 100-year old grandmother (my best barometer of ‘food’ and food quality) served liver every week and still loves it. I knew it was the best way to fortify myself and my family; I had to get on board.

Here’s how it would go down:

Learning to love liver

First, for the remainder of the table, I would always serve desirable sides. We’d have creamed spinach, buttered carrots, along with rice or potatoes, that kind of thing – but not much on each plate. And of course you would have to finish your serving of meat to get more sides.

I might have also (deliberately?) forgotten snack at pick up that day, and planned on an early dinner. It helps when everyone is hungry. I would eat lightly that day myself, in preparation. No use spoiling my own liver dinner with a hearty (careless) lunch.

Though for me, sparkling water was truly my salvation. We don’t have many beverages in our home besides fresh milk and water, so this bottle became the centerpiece of the table on these evenings. One small cup for everyone, I would surreptitiously reserve most of the bottle for myself. Every bite I took, I would chew and chew… and chew. And then, hoping none of the kids were watching, I would gulp some sparkling goodness and swallow it all down.

Sometimes I would procrastinate coming to the table, dreading having to eat my liver, too. But eventually I would sit down, with my glass of sparkling water, and would stay put and skip the sides until I had dutifully finished my serving, same as I expected from my kids.

Validation

With time and patience, I have actually grown to enjoy liver. I love chicken liver tacos and this liver piccata recipe is now just another delicious meal in our home. No sparkling water required.

I was pleased to find out that the literature validates my tactics. Repeated exposure to food can help us develop an ‘acquired taste.’ Psycology Today says you need to eat a food at least 15 times before you can judge whether you like it or not. In addition to being persistent, they also say to mix an abhorred food with a preferred one (piccata, in this case), and to educate yourself. The more you know about nutrition, the more you may be motivated to try or stick with a new food.

So, why is liver so important?

Here’s the deal: we can only consume a fixed number of calories every day. If you believe, as I do, that we need solid nutrition to grow strong or stay healthy, then every calorie consumed is an opportunity for those nutrients. Empty calories are lost opportunities. And there is nothing more nutrient dense than organ meat.

“[Liver] contains a large amount of high-quality protein, an easily absorbed form of iron, all of the B vitamins (including B12 and folic acid in significant amounts), balanced quantities of vitamin A, many trace elements and minerals including copper, zinc, chromium, phosphorus, and selenium, essential fatty acids EPA, DHA, and AA, as well as the powerful antioxidant CoQ10,” describes Kayla Grossman.

And as much as I love my veggies, and I do, Chris Kessler sums it up best with his comparison of liver to apples, carrots and red meat. To say that liver comes out ahead is an understatement.

Fringe benefits

Plus, it’s usually the cheapest cut of meat – though that seems to be changing! Even still, few people are in the market these days. My favorite pastured and grass-fed animal farmers are selling filet mignon for a whopping $25-35/lb (worth every penny, I might add), but you can buy these nutrient-dense organs for $3-10/lb.

Finally, it’s an honest way to eat meat: respecting and eating the whole animal.

So along those lines, I’ve been cooking and serving it all – liver, kidneys, heart, tongue, brains, rocky mountain oysters, tripe, sweetbreads, wild fish roe (when my fishmonger would otherwise be throwing it out), and using all the heads and eyes and bones and skins (oh my!) for a while now. Do you enjoy these foods? Would you try them? Let me know in the comments below. Your growing peeps definitely need them. But let’s not kid ourselves, so do we.