sweet and sour tongue

 My Dad’s store was on Avenue J in Brooklyn, and my mother’s parents lived upstairs from the store. Needless to say, a good deal of my childhood revolved around Avenue J.

That apartment stayed in the family for a long time, long after my grandparents were gone. It became mine for a few years when I was young and my first son was a baby. After we moved out, my brother lived there for some years, and when the afore mentioned son was going to college in NYC, he moved in with his uncle and then stayed on when his uncle moved out.

There was a kosher restaurant around the corner on Coney Island Avenue, called Essex on Coney, that was wonderful. It served all the classic Ashkenazi dishes, all of them made very well. But my favorite item on the menu was their Tongue Polonaise.

At home, Sweet and Sour Tongue didn’t show up on our dinner table often, but when it did it was a fabulous treat. I don’t remember my mother ever making it; it was a Grandma thing. When I grew up and started cooking, she taught me how to make it. Her recipe tasted pretty much the same as the tongue at Essex on Coney, except for one special ingredient that took her’s over the top—ginger snap cookies.

Although tongue isn’t as popular as it once was, it’s still available and it’s still delicious. I dare you to look past it’s appearance—yes, it definitely looks like a tongue—and give it a try. I think you’ll agree that it’s fabulous.

Ingredients:

• 3 pound pickled tongue (more or less)—you can pickle it yourself, but it’s easier to buy it that way.

• 1 onion, sliced

• 2 bay leaves

• 1 15-ounce can tomato sauce

• fresh cold water

• juice of one lemon

• A few whole allspice berries

• 3/4 cup brown sugar

• 1/2 cup dark raisins

• 8 ginger snap cookies

Method:

First Cooking—

• In a pot large enough for the tongue to lie flat, scatter the onion slices.

• Put the tongue on top of the onions and add the bay leaves and the allspice berries.

• Add fresh cold water to completely cover the tongue.

• Cover the pot and simmer the tongue over medium heat for 2 hours. Then remove the tongue from the pot and set it aside to cool.

Second Cooking—

• When the tongue is cool enough to handle, make a small superficial cut in the tough skin that covers the tongue.

• Then, starting from your incision, peel off the skin.

• Slice the tongue into 1/4 thick slices. (Bear in mind that the tip is the most desirable part for most people)

• Return the wiped out pot to the stove and pour in the tomato sauce.

• Refill the can with cold water and add that in, too.

• Squeeze in the lemon juice and add the brown sugar and the ginger snaps (crumbled in your hands before tossing in).

• Add sliced tongue, overlapping the slices as you go around the pot.

• Cook the tongue in the sauce, covered, on medium-low heat for 30 minutes. Keep an eye on the pot to make sure the sauce doesn’t cook out. If it looks like it’s getting too thick or dried out, add more water.

• Add the raisins. Continue to cook the tongue for another 30 minutes, or until the tongue is very tender (check the thicker slices with a long fork). Serve the tongue with its sauce poured over.