Everybody talks about cutting down expenses but, like the weather, few do anything about it, or if they do (mostly the women) they are likely to get razzed by an indecorous family, especially if they try to work off some of the cheaper cuts of meat, the so-called specialties.
You take oxtails. You might as well, because we won't any more. They are about the cheapest thing on the counter, and by some epicures are counted delectable. Whatever taste I personally might have acquired for them is definitely clabbered.
Ours were braised. The platter was nicely garnished, the way you are supposed to do to charm the appetite and throw off suspicion, but there was mistrust in the countenances of my husband and my father from the moment they spied it, and when it was passed to grandfather there was a very definite pause before he served himself; so long that I was obliged to name the dish. "Oh, he said, "Well. They are supposed to be edible." And he took a scant portion. As my husband took what he considered his fair share, that is all he could reasonably be expected to tackle, a very small amount, I felt I had to explain, and instead of dramatizing the matter or claiming an experimental urge, I came right out with the truth -- namely, they were cheap. "Oh," said he. "Well. I have never seen a better demonstration of the fact that you get what you pay for, or a little less."
There was silence for a little while. Then my husband inquired, as he tried to sever a morsel of meat from the bone, "In a cut like this do you carve with the grain or crosswise?" A little later grandfather felt impelled to add an anecdote. So he told about the teacher from town who boarded with them years ago. She knew absolutely nothing about farm life, but was so fascinated by it that she would follow the men around in her free time and watch all that went on. The family happened to have a cow at that time which had a bob-tail due to some accident. The young lady remarked that she had always been under the impression that a cow had a longer tail than that. "Most of them do," replied the man, "but this is our soup cow. Whenever we need a soup bone we just come out and cut off a joint."
Then to cap the climax, my husband meditated out loud. "I wonder if there is very much anatomical difference between a horse tail and an ox tail?" In view of the recent horse meat scandals in Illinois, this remark was the crowning indignity.
Oh, well, the dog enjoyed what was left. He might have enjoyed it still more in the raw instead of cooked and garnished. And if we have any more oxtails around here, that is the way and the place they will be served.
How can a lady save money if her menfolks won't eat things like tripe, haggis and braised oxtails? How can a cook win the battle of the budget if she is continually sabotaged? -- Hope.