Fellers, we are getting off into some deep stuff now! My 98 year young, father-in-law, a Florida Cracker cow hunter turned butcher was always up to something interesting when processing in the custom kill business. The topic of mountain oysters came up and he said, "The next time we kill a couple of young bulls, I'll salvage them for y'all and tell you how to cook 'em." True to his word he salvaged several pairs. He dressed them for us and then said you slice them and dice them and fry 'em. We decided to dice them after they were cut in half long ways. I kept a half as it was. Those that were diced, seasoned, breaded and fried were deliscious! The full half was also delisious but it seemed to get bigger and bigger as I tried to swallow it!
Then there is the thymus gland or pancreas of a younger beef, another delicacy.
The butcher always got the head and the tail of the beef unless the customer asked for them. Lots of lean meat on a cow head and everyone knows about ox tail, it has become a delicacy. Grandpa would grind the head meat, add the sectioned ox tail in a pot and cook it till the meat came off the tail bones. He called it "Alpha and Omega stew"!
On the subject of killing the hogs, Grandpa always has us to shoot them right behind the ear, angling forward toward the snout. They dropped like a rock. He said some hogs had such a thick hide that the little .22 would ricochet and just make 'em mad.
Later on, the inspection rules changed and if an animal was killed with a lead bullet, the head was condemned, went in the gut barrel. They bought a fiber bullet designed especially for kill floors.
In the kill box at his processing plant, he had a special head catch that was used for Kosher kill. The Rabbi would come and say a few words and cut the animal's throat. Grandpa didn't like that procedure. He knew the critter suffered when this method was used. He figured the Rabbi was sort of liberal and talked him into letting him shoot 1st then the Rabbi could stick him and see the same blood.
Enough rabbit chasing for now.
Treefarmer
A local gunshop wanted to sell me 300 rounds of .22 CCI Mini mags for $60! Get real! ftd
They were the 1st I had seen locally, Walmart and Tractor Supply ammo shelves look like Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard.