Here is another one but it could be the same one, I don't know.
Son of a Bitch Stew. Recipe.
A
beef stew, various recipes exist, and some sources say its ingredients may vary according to whatever is on hand. Most recipes involve meat and
offal from a
calf, though, making sonofabitch stew something of a luxury item on the trail.
Alan Davidson's
Oxford Companion to Food specifies meats and organs from a freshly killed unweaned calf, including the
brain,
heart,
liver,
sweetbreads,
tongue, pieces of
tenderloin, and an item called the "marrow gut" and lots of Louisiana hot sauce.
This last item, the "marrow gut", was a key ingredient. Davidson quotes Ramon Adam's 1952
Come An' Get It: The Story of the Old Cowboy Cook, which reports that this is a tube, between two of the calf's stomachs, filled with a substance resembling
marrow, deemed edible only while the calf is young and still feeding on milk. This marrow-like substance was included in the stew and, according to Adams, was "what gave the stew such a delicious flavor". Davidson says this "marrow gut" probably was the passage leading to the
abomasum as well as the abomasum itself (said to have a "distinctive flavour of
rennin-curdled milk"). Another possibility is that "marrow gut" refers to the calf's thymus, more commonly known as "sweetbread". Sweetbread is indeed commonly found in traditional European cookery and many books refer to the use of this ingredient, including for the preparation of stews made with offal. In German it is called "Kalbsbries", in French "Ris de veau". Interestingly, a French book originally published in 1928 (Ali-Bab - alias used by Henri Babinski: "Gastronomie Pratique") refers to a recipe involving sweetbread but also the spinal marrow ("cord"). Babinski is known for having traveled around the world.
The stew also contained seasonings and sometimes
onion. Babinski's recipe for 8 guests contains the following ingredients, which cook together for about 4 hours at moderate heat in the oven, the excess of surfacing fat being removed before serving: - 2 pounds of flesh of a calf's head (including the ears, cut into slices) - 1 pound of liver, sliced(placed on top of the mix) - 1 pound of spinal marrow cut into pieces(idem) - 2 kidneys, sliced (idem) - 1 sweetbread, sliced(idem) - tongue (skin removed)and brains, all sliced (idem) - dry white wine (1/4 liter) - a strong veal broth (1/4 liter) - carrots, onions, tomatoes and a few green olives without stones - butter (to roast the sliced liver and kidneys before adding them to the mix) - some flour to thicken the sauce - lemon juice at the end, before serving - salt, pepper, spices
