Heart Valve in my Pastie!!!

point3

Fifer wrote:

Are you sure it was a heart valve? Do beef cattle get heart surgery? I'd have thought that would be economically unviable and that an animal with a heart complaint would just be slaughtered early. I could be wrong, but I'd be more easily convinced that the valve was part of the meat processing equipment used in the rendering process. Unless you're buying from the 'Sweeney Todd Pie Company' of course ... :think:

??

Animal hearts are probably used all the time in pie and pasty fillings; it just sounds like it wasn't chopped up or ground up finely enough to make it unrecognisable _pale_ .

Porcine valves are still used in human transplants - they're a tough tissue!!

Fifer

Wig wrote:

Fifer,

Blood vessels have non return valves in them, it was a natural valve not some sort of artificial valve.

OP your meat was just a little coarser than usual, next time ask for fine ground, say your teeth can't cope with the coarse stuff.

Oh, I competely misunderstood. Not very savoury, but probably perfectly legal. I think it would just be viewed like a lump of gristle, unpleasant but the risk you take with cheap meat products. Technically, I think this would still qualify as 'meat'. This might help.

gibby

I thought valves etc was classed as offal and is only fit for dog food, not human consumption.

I do know alot of things can be ground up and added in there.

I also saw a great tv prog recently where ppl who work in meat factories were taking the bits that should have gone in the bin and selling them to butchers shops, restaurants and take aways at bargin prices.

they even set it up that one of the crew sold normal meat -but nobody knew this and most of the places he visited bought meat without any checks as to where it came from, inclusing some very expensive restaurants.

also to shock you - blood and gelatin (ground up bones and all the waste bits made into a sticky glue)
are commonly added to wine & beer.

enjoy


G

trisontana

Offal is not classed as only fit for dog food. You can buy hearts , liver , kidneys etc. which are all offal and fit to eat. We sometimes buy lamb's hearts and they contain remnants of the valves. You just cut them out, wash out the heart, stuff it with sage and onion and slow cook in a rich gravy - delicious!

black-saturn

Yuk :eek: :eek:

trisontana

black-saturn wrote:

Yuk :eek: :eek:

Unless you have tried it I don't think you can judge. A heart is just a large muscle , just like best steak.

black-saturn

I have tried heart and I've also been made to eat tripe. I cant say I like it though. I do love pork crackle though.

nearlyrich

I used to love roast heart and stuffing on my sandwiches for school, local cooked meat shop speciality. Sadly in biology we had to dissect a heart and it totally put me off.

Quasar

Big manufacurers put inside pasties all the sort of meat that would otherwise be thrown away: some offal (just enough not to alter the meat taste), ground cartilage, etc. Large blood vessels like the heart valve OP has described usually are chopped up in the manufacturing process, but some stuff slips through in big chunks.

It's the price we pay for the relatively cheap, ready prepared foods that abound around us...

vickym

hey at least it wasnt a mechanical heart valve - like the one I've got in my aorta - mines definetly not edible

:j