When you set about to butcher a chicken, the first thing you do is chop off its legs and head; these severed items are as unimportant to you as they were important to the bird, and thus you sweep them to the edge of the table where they fall onto the floor. It is this action that lies behind the word offal: the word refers to the scraps of the animal that literally fall off the butcher’s table. The reason that these scraps are called offal instead of fall-off is that the term was borrowed in the fourteenth century from Middle Dutch, which had a different way of ordering the words in such compounds. In the fifteenth century the meaning of the word shifted slightly in English as it came to mean the innards of a butchered animal, including those innards, like the liver and heart, sometimes used for food.
Animal parts discarded during the process of butchering or slaughtering, typically including the brain, viscera, skin, hooves, and blood. These by-products have been implicated in the transmission of some infectious illnesses, like mad cow disease.
The term “offal” is commonly associated with the discarded portions of an animal, such as the entrails. However, when used in a culinary context, it can refer to the consumable internal organs, including the kidneys, heart, and liver, as well as the head, tail, and feet. Additionally, it can occasionally denote less expensive fish, such as plaice, as opposed to higher quality fish like sole.
In Britain, the term “offal” is employed to denote a fascinating category of meats known as variety meats. The origin of this term can be traced back to “off fell,” which alludes to the edible portions of an animal that are either removed or naturally separate during the process of carcass preparation. Offal encompasses a diverse range of organ meats, offering unique flavors and textures that captivate adventurous palates and find their place in various culinary traditions.