Remember that scene in Indiana Jones where they’re eating gooey brains straight from the monkey’s little skulls? I always thought that scene was a bit xenophobic to be honest – look at the mad cruel foreigners and their disgusting culinary tastes, and finally it seems I may have been proved right.

The proof of the pudding, as it were, being that brains (at least in my recent experience) are not gooey or slimy in the slightest, and are in fact crunchy like chips on the outside with a soft creamy centre. To be fair they were calves’ brains and for all I know monkey brains do ooze stringy goo when cleaved straight from the open head of the unfortunate animal.

The brains were also fried rather than steamed, which gives me the rare opportunity to put on my knowledgeable nutrition hat and say that the average brain is 60% fat so it would make sense that this would be a good way to cook it. (This is also, incidentally why Omega 3s oils are so good for the brain).

Very hard to make an accurate taste analysis, but chips would be the nearest thing for the delicious crunchy exterior with an added unctuous loveliness. They were really nice.

I ate them in a Ukrainian themed restaurant in Moscow with live barn animals in the centre, but that’s another story (www.shinok.ru if anyone wants to track it down.

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