Tongue-containing foods

Yesterday I smoked a turkey with my friend Dan; we started the turkey at 8:30 a.m., and were finished by 4:30 (there was some worry that we wouldn’t have it cooked in time for dinner, since every single recipe for smoked turkey that I found had a different cooking time, from 4 to 10 hours). During the smoking marathon, we headed over to the Alpine Sausage Kitchen to pick up lunch. Dan bought some A.S.K.-made salami, while I stuck with the standard bratwurst. But as usual, I wanted to try something new, so I picked up a couple of slices of tongue-blood sausage (just to be daring). If you get by the appearance (pictured below), it isn’t too bad, although I’m not sure I’d buy it on a regular basis.



After trying a bit of this sausage, a guest at dinner related his recent experience with a tongue burrito, which he recommended I taste. So today I headed over to “Taqueria Mexico” to order a “burrito lengua”. Again, it was OK, but I was a little disturbed by how the tongue was not peeled and still had all of its papillae. Your food shouldn’t be able to French you while you eat it. I’ve been telling friends for some time now that when tongue is cooked, the skin is always removed; my credibility will be going down a few notches now. Here’s a picture of the half-eaten burrito (I didn’t finish it), showing a piece of the tongue with skin (I apologize for the blurriness):