My first liver

[Aliayzar]

Mind you this is not about my first taste of liver. I adore liver and devour it when I can. This is about my impromptu dinner I just finished. I was making liver and onions w. king oyster mushrooms and I realized there were two pieces of liver and it dawned on me, I love liver maybe I should give it a try semi-raw, I am a little queasy being this close to my period and going through a little kombucha detox so all raw was out of the question.
 I pan seared in chicken fat a few minutes on each side and tried  a bite since it was still dark red in the center, and you know what? It was fantastic but still not good to my currently queasy stomach. So I yanked that sucker out stuck it 5 more minutes in the toaster oven till it was a bit bloody and more pink than dark red and it was phenomenal! Will be eating my liver more raw from now on, taste better too. Funny enough licking the blood off my fingers after seasoning w. salt and pepper did not bother me out at all. So this is my personal success post.
Anyone ever tried combing raw/ rawish liver with anything or do you just eat it on its own? I feel so not heavy after eating that its almost like I ate nothing at all. Also how do you deal with the anxiety that sets in when you remember the rules about cooking meat thoroughly?

[CitrusHigh]

Oh ma gosh, got to tell ya I LOoooOve seared liver in lime, fish sauce/tamari, a little salt and coarsely cracked pepper!! I first got the idea for this when I was looking at a recipe for chicken liver skewers when I got interested in filipino street food (actually I love street food from anywhere, it's the best! (NOT healthy though as a general rule!)) Will put more later, got to run, but liver is a culinary delicacy for sure!

I also love a good grass fed or preferably, wild, liver raw. The best I ever had was fresh from a wild turkey my dad shot. I ate it right from the animal 5 minutes after it was killed, in-freaking-credible! Actually it's a toss up between that one and some liver I had in mexico, it was nearly black because of the lush natural diet and was soooo tender and mild, not the slightest bit 'livery'!

[van]

try hanging it in your fridge (with a bowl underneath to catch the drippings) for a week or longer.  Much tastier, and eat with fat. 

[eveheart]

I eat liver raw almost every day - lamb liver is easy for me to obtain; grass-fed beef liver, not so easy. Chicken liver is okay tasting, but I can only find grain-fed chicken. I hang the whole thing on a hook in the refrigerator, as Van suggested. To make a serving, I cut it into bite size chunks with a kitchen scissors.

I suffered from a touch of ick-factor at first, especially with the ducts (or whatever the tubes are called). Quite quickly, the idea of eating raw liver became enjoyable to me. Nowadays, I get all fussy if I can't get fresh liver.

[cherimoya_kid]

Also how do you deal with the anxiety that sets in when you remember the rules about cooking meat thoroughly?

I worry, but then I remember that the people who preach those rules have muffled voices because of the sound-dampening effect of the walls of the rectum, i.e., their heads are UP their asses, and they're talking OUT of their asses.

ROFL

No, seriously, the Japanese eat all kinds of meat/fish raw, have for centuries, and have no health problems from it. They feed raw meat/fish to their toddlers and elderly, and everyone else.  If they can survive it, I think we can too.

[Aaaaaa]

try hanging it in your fridge (with a bowl underneath to catch the drippings) for a week or longer.  Much tastier, and eat with fat.

I'm going to try this!!  So far, the only way I really like liver is making raw pate by blending livers, salt, pepper, onion, garlic and a little honey.  That is nummy scooped up with sliced veggies!
But in my expieriences thus far, hanging any meat in the fridge for a few days makes it taste WAYYY better (I love that chewy dry "skin" it forms on the outside!) so I bet it would make liver yummy.  It made kidney taste pretty darn good, and that was kind of ikcy to me fresh.

[TylerDurden]

Also how do you deal with the anxiety that sets in when you remember the rules about cooking meat thoroughly?

Well, for me it was much easier as I got stomach-aches after eating any cooked animal food, pre-rawpalaeodiet, which was a major incentive to eat a wide variety of raw animal foods.

Like a lot of RVAFers, I was more or less convinced, when I started, that I would get food-poisoning or parasites and have a good chance of dying. The fact that I was already dying anyway on a cooked-food-diet meant that I just carried on regardless with the RVAF diet until, after many months, I realised, with surprise, that I wasn't dead yet, and that all the media-scares re raw animal foods were bogus.

[Aliayzar]

Oh so many tasty options! Thanks for the inspiration and anxiety advice from everyone. I got over the anxiety quickly when I realized how good I felt and the look of horror on my mothers face when she passed by sort of added humor to my anxiety, she keeps insisting were not meant to eat raw meat, its quite funny.
Cant wait to try all the tasty ways to eat liver suggested here, hanging in the fridge for a week & cooked with lime and fish sauce I don't know what to try first! Now I have to go buy more liver and maybe trick the husband into eating a piece or two .

[Intoit]

I was able to get my first taste of extremely fresh (just a few hours after slaughter) grass fed beef liver while in Mexico. I hated liver as a kid and have been consuming frozen calf liver every now and then. Man, never again. I ate my liver completely raw. Very dark in color, extremely mild in flavor, it already tasted slightly salty with nothing added to it. I really enjoyed eating it, good liver is a delicacy for sure!

[CitrusHigh]

Wow, you had the identical experience to me into it! that's amazing. Why do you think the liver's elsewhere are so different? I believe it's due to the breed of the mexican cattle and/or the year round availability of lush green vegetation without a grain in sight! I get fresh grass fed liver up here, and it is ok, but very firm, crisp and much more 'livery' tasting. Would that I had access to the mexican variety all year, mmmMm!

[Intoit]

Not sure what kind of cattle the liver was from, but I do know the region I was in stays lush and green year round - mountainous with higher elevations, semi-arid rainforest. The cattle always have plenty of grass to eat, unless the property is really small and then they supplement with hay as needed. I am afraid I am now spoiled to liver.

On a side note, I also got the sweetest, most amazing pork ever while there. It was only a few hours old. I can understand how others have tried raw pork and gotten hooked on how yummy it it. Makes me wonder how much time passes from slaughter to sell-by-date here in the US (seriously, I don't think I want to know!)

CitrusHigh, I also share your love for street food! Definitely not healthy, but always fun and exciting all the same

[Aliayzar]

So this is my update. I didn't eat anything new or sketchy yesterday just some eggs, homemade 24hr yogurt and goat stew I made but later on in the night I got a bout of shivers, hot cold flashes, intestinal cramping, dizziness, internal shivers and dry heaving (no vomiting) almost like food poisoning all while getting extremely sleepy. That lasted about 45 minutes and then the cramping and urge to go to the bathroom would come intermittently and last a minute or so for about 2 hours. It all ended in one round of diarrhea at which point I took an activated charcoal and was perfectly fine. Today I fasted and stuck to broth, sauerkraut juice, kombucha,  shrimp, eggs, some applesauce and some coconut oil around 3pm till now just to give my digestion a break.

The only thing I could think of that did this was the raw liver from US Wellness Meats and again it didn't really last that long just nearly 3 hours. Anybody else experience anything like this after eating raw or partially raw liver for the first time?