Eating Liver Won't Kill You, Will It?

I suspect most of us grew up hearing 'eat your liver, it's good for you!'  Yuck!  Yes I ate it.  I'm sure it's good for me.  Mother's are usually right about things like that--liver, Brussels sprouts, peas. 

But how many of you, now that you have your own kids, are repeating that particular mantra?  I have to say this is one area where Mom and I differ.  We always will.  I'm NOT going to make anyone eat liver.  Or Brussels sprouts, or peas, especially canned ones.  It's not that I don't agree it's good for you, it's I'm not about to make anyone eat THAT STUFF!

I'm one of those people who go to a restaurant and doesn't order sweet breads too.  The good news is that not eating that stuff won't kill you!  (Mom never told me it would, just that it was good for me.)  You'd think she would have gotten the message after my brother stuffed his veggies in his pants pocket and she found them for the zillionth time in the laundry! 

Of course Mom did let us cover the liver with ketchup to kill the taste (or maybe as a way to get another food group in us?)  For some reason we never had liver with onions, no idea why.  But we did eat other odd food.  Like gizzards.  OK, you get a roasting chicken or turkey, it comes with all that 'gunk' inside. We actually ate the stuff.  Yuck!  We also ate a lot of wild game.  Ducks, geese, sometimes venison.  Wild game is definitely an acquired taste. 

It was only after I grew up that I realized that a sure sign of just how much my mom loved my dad was her willingness to cook the things he shot! And eat them too.  (I guess I should give thanks we weren't eating squirrels or rabbits.) 

My children lucked out.  No wild game at my house.  No chance to chomp down on a piece of shot that got left in the duck for dinner.  No gamey tasting dinners disguised with gravy.  Nope, my mom didn't raise a fool, I married a man who didn't hunt and solved that problem! 

So thank you Mom for teaching me the value of the nutrients of liver, but thanks but no thanks, I'm NOT making my family eat it! I just force feed them TOFU!