# Liver, brain **Chef:** Monisha **Cookbook:** Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada **Potluck Date:** March 29, 2025 --- ## Recipe Brain tastes a bit like egg yolk or matki (moth bean). Kalij/kaleji (liver) Liver, often referred to as kalij or yakrut in Marathi, spoils faster than meat so it is to be relished while fresh. Fresh, uncooked liver is dark purple. It turns black after a while. The liver also has a thin white membrane covering it. While cleaning the liver or holding a cut piece of liver in hand, the hand gets stained with a purplish discharge like ripe jamun (Indian blackberry) juice. Liver is prepared in two ways: with a thick gravy or dry. The taste and texture of liver is different from that of mutton. Since liver cooks faster than mutton, it is prepared separately. Liver, when cooked by itself, is cooked the same way as fashi and mendu. If the entire liver had not already been sold, the butcher would give a piece of it along with regular mutton. It is then cooked as part of the usual mutton preparation. But no matter how many other pieces of mutton are there, a piece of liver can easily be distinguished and spotted in the preparation. When liver is cooked, it becomes thick like mushroom. This too is loved by children as there is no bone, muscle or fat in it. Liver curry tastes outstanding with jowar or bajri bhakri. Recipe Follow the recipes for fashi and mendu. Cook with a thick gravy or dry; use less water. Boka/gudada/gurda (kidneys) The two kidneys are surrounded by a thick layer of fat. It is in shades of brown just like a cat’s eyes. Kidneys appear as plump as the cheeks of a tomcat, and tomcats are known as boka in Marathi. Perhaps that’s why it is called boka. It is sold per piece and not by weight. Procuring kidneys (boka) is very difficult due to high demand. Kidneys are as perishable as fashi, mendu and kalij, so whoever gets to the butcher first, benefits. The recipe for boka is similar to that for fashi, mendu and kalij. If there is no exclusive customer, it is given along with the mutton. It tastes the same, whether cooked in its own curry, without spices or in regular mutton curry. It looks and tastes like mushroom. Kids love this too. Although it changes colour when cooked, it can be easily identified in mutton curry, just like liver. Animals also have kidney stones. The butchers skilfully separate them when asked. Offering liver and kidneys to someone at a feast was considered a special gesture and was done only for near and dear ones. When people quarrelled, those who had been thus honoured would be reminded: ‘You have forgotten everything, even the fact that I/we have treated you with liver and kidneys.’ These delicacies were a favourite of everyone but very rarely available to the Mahar and Mang communities. Recipe Follow the recipes for fashi, kalij or mendu, or simply add to your mutton curry. Dil (heart) The heart is a reddish-purple like a mix of liver and kidney and is as big as a custard apple. It used to be given along with regular meat. While washing the meat and even in the meat curry, the pieces float. It’s not liked much by food-lovers as its taste and texture are a bit unusual—like a sponge. Recipe Clean and wash well; cut into small pieces. Cook with regular mutton in a curry. Fofis/pofis/kopis (lungs) Salmon-pink in colour, light in weight, lungs are divided into two parts. Not everyone likes lungs. This is just as unpopular as the heart. It used to be given along with wajadi (intestines) rather than regular meat. Lungs are also perishable. They float in water while washing—they retain this quality in thin curries. Although the lung is like a sponge, it does not absorb the gravy. It is cooked in a distinct way. Recipe Ingredients Lungs Salt Method Cut the lungs into long, thin pieces. Hang them on a stand (made using regular utensils with some tricks) over the stove. Keep the flames low—glowing embers, like for a barbecue, would be best. Rub a little salt over the pieces, if required, while roasting. Roast till original colour changes and becomes darker and pieces look done. Serve. The smoky aroma lingers in the atmosphere and makes everyone salivate. These moist pieces are delicious to eat. This is the only recipe of lungs that is popular amongst foodies. Gana (trachea or windpipe) Gana looks exactly like the white drainpipe of a washing machine or washbasin. It is crispy and makes a crunching noise when you bite it—karram, kurram—just like the sound in a famous advertisement for papad. The sensation is exactly what you experience when eating cucumber. This is also cooked along with other meat in a curry. There is no separate recipe for this. Recipe Chop into small pieces and cook with meat in a curry in the usual way. Tona (bones) In simple Marathi, people call bones nalli or tube. These are the bones attached to the joints—chiefly the long bones of the limbs, which are filled with marrow. Shankar Rao Kharaat in his autobiography Taral-Antaral says that there are sixteen types of tona. Animals have joints in sixteen places and each has its own name, such as thoga, gudsa, dharya, chakalya, bhegu, metya and so on. Metya means the haunches on which the tired animal rests when it becomes feeble or is totally exhausted. A phrase in Marathi—metakutila yene—to sit on one’s haunches (meaning a very exhausted state), may be a reference to this. Black magic is referred to as jadu-tona (magic with human bones). The bones in the magician’s hands are those of the joints and must have led to the phrase being used. Tona in cookery is nothing but different nallis chopped into pieces. The various broken tonas are given along with the main meat. Children would be given tona cooked without adding spices. They would eat tona holding it with both hands and with their eyes closed. This was to avoid the possibility of it slipping out of their hands or the curry squirting into their eyes. The best part of tona is vasu (bone marrow). Hot bhakri is mashed by hand and vasu mixed in it. This soft mixture is given to children. It must be served hot, because it dries out after cooling down. Sometimes vasu could not be drawn out of the tona easily; then the tona would be held upright and be knocked hard on a flat stone or board. Vasu in spicy curry also tastes excellent with hot bhakri. In the code language of the Mangs, ‘vas’ means absorb or suck up. It is usually very easy to suck marrow out of the small tonas. Maybe that’s why it’s called vasa. If the tona is small, the marrow is also called bal. In Sanskrit vasa means fat. Bal and mand (fat) Bal is the fat within the meat. The fattier the meat, the better its quality, according to the Mahar and Mang community. Otherwise, they would label the meat as inferior and thin. This is the layer of fat that accumulates and floats atop cooked meat curry. When the cooked meat cools down, the fat congeals and forms a thick layer of white, sometimes yellowish or greenish, fat resembling the thick fresh cream that accumulates on milk. Hot jowar bhakri would be crushed and some of this fat layer would be mixed in it. A novice would start coughing profusely if they tried eating this. Children loved the mixture made by adding non-spicy fat on hot bhakri. This fat doesn’t taste good when eaten after cooling down. The gravy must be hot in order to enjoy this delicacy. By the time one was through eating, the remaining fat would stick to the plate. It used to get stuck in the gaps of teeth and under the nails. If it came in contact with cold water, it became even stickier and tough to remove. Hot water with ash or soap would be used to wash the hands and a rough cloth was used to wipe them so that the accumulated fat would come off from the nails. Some people could not digest this fat and it would lead to dysentery. Mand is the deposit of pure fat found in various parts of the body. Some people call it toop (ghee or clarified butter). Animals have more fat around their diaphragm, intestines and kidneys. Healthy and young animals have fat deposits everywhere in the body. Fat from cows --- *Downloaded from BCBCBath Cookbook Club* *https://bcbcbath.com*