Consume with Care

How is it, that regardless of which side of the heartbreak you’re on, when partners actually like each other, it feels like you have been sliced open with a dull rusty blade, had your entrails torn from the cavity, and then clumsily reordered by dirty hands and stuffed back in. Survivors are left to hold themselves together and if they can, to seal the gaping hole in who they were.

If you’re lucky, you’ll find a talented seamstress in your social circle who will help you with the task. Othertimes, a new lover may generously offer to clean the wound and seal it with carpenters glue. Most times however, we walk through the world, our arms wrapped tight around ourselves, holding everything in.

We try not to leave trails of bloody footprints as traces of our wanderings, or worse, little bits of innards that sometimes fall out when we are exhausted to the point of letting go. Those of us who are particularly unlucky end up accidentally burying someone else in a virtual avalanche of guts and gristle, leaving them completely disgusted.

This devastation happens to both parties, if you’ve mistakenly decided to be friends, as an exercise of good faith. There is no escaping that deep ache that comes from knowing that you caused deliberate, if unintended harm, by ripping out your friends heart.

And it is that involvement of the heart that is the only real difference. It’s what helps people tell the doer and the done to apart. The excision of the heart is a messy process. It involves more than just a quick, bloody incision. Ribs must be cracked, lungs displaced, blood vessels severed. There is no way to be gentle about it, no kindness in it, no real generosity. While it may be for someone’s good in the long term, damage is damage, and tears are tears.

Once excised, there are options for the heart. Unlike the rest of the viscera, there is no use shoving it back into the cavity for it to lie there, disconnected and inert. There are those cultures that believed consuming the heart of ones enemy made one stronger. Logically it follows that consuming the heart of a lover invigorates one in even greater ways. That said, consuming the freely offered heart of a true friend rejuvenates one in a way that can only be seen to be believed.

Since it’s a well used muscle, even the most tender heart is surprisingly tough. While thinly sliced heart can be eaten raw, the toughness of the muscle allows for a couple of preparation options for the diner; either an intensely quick sear, or a long slow braise. Each cooking technique results in striking results.

Seared heart, thinly sliced, is best consumed “black and blue” or intensely caramelized and darkly crusted on the outside, and quiveringly raw within. It pairs exceedingly well with a chimichurri, or similar acidic, herbally vegetal preparation. Eaters report tasting iron, and revelling in the rich micronutrients that are accessible to their palates and to their bodies. Those who consume heart this way are often left craving it with an interesting ache, one that only continued consumption can ease, but never fully vanquish.

The second preparation makes it heart easier to consume, parly because the muscle becomes indecipherable from the braising liquid and supporting aromatic components. The long, slow, gentle application of heat breaks down protein and results in a surprisingly succulent collection of morsels. The heart still maintains a more complex flavour profile than other muscles, but in this preparation, could well be passed off as another muscle altogether, much to the potential terror of unwitting diners.

Regardless of which preparation option the diner decides to employ before consuming the heart, the diner is all but guaranteed a sensory experience unparalleled by any other.

The more cruel option would be to take the generously and freely offered heart and gently hand it back to the exisiting friend or lover, suggesting an inadequacy beyond anything they can rectify and improve for future partners.

An unconsumed heart cannot be re inserted in hopes that everything will be all better. At best, the organ can be handed to an established eater of hearts, one without a specific preference or any real hesitation of consuming protein from an unknown source. At worst, the unconsumed organ putrifies into a messy pool of goo that stains all surfaces it comes in contact with. A true waste of something relatively rare, and somewhat precious.

Donors of consumable hearts are few and far between. Be very careful of whose heart you rip put, and how you treat it. You never know if you will develop a sudden craving for the dark complex taste of iron, or if you will be responsible for the cravings of another going unsated because of your poorly informed actions. You also have no way of knowing when someone may rip yours out, unless you’ve made a practice of offering it up, unasked for.

 

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