The word does not refer to a particular list of edible organs, and these lists of organs vary with culture and region, but usually exclude skeletal muscle. Some cultures strongly consider offal consumption to be taboo , while others use it as part of their everyday food or, in many instances, as delicacies. Others remain part of traditional regional cuisine and are consumed especially during holidays; some examples are sweetbread , Jewish chopped liver , Scottish haggis , U.
On the other hand, intestines are traditionally used as casing for sausages. Depending on the context, offal may refer only to those parts of an animal carcass discarded after butchering or skinning ; offal not used directly for human or animal consumption is often processed in a rendering plant, producing material that is used for fertilizer or fuel ; or in some cases, it may be added to commercially produced pet food.
However, these words are not often used to refer to food except for Afrikaans in the agglutination afvalvleis lit. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word entered Middle English from Middle Dutch in the form afval , derived from af off and vallen to fall. It is not related to the English word awful , which originally meant "inspiring awe ," then shifted meaning to "terrifying" and then to "very bad.
Organ meat is typically referred to with established terms used for other edible parts of the animal, such that the heart of a cow would be known as beef heart, while that of a pig would be known as pork heart.
In some parts of Europe, scrotum , brain , chitterlings pig's small intestine , trotters feet , heart, head of pigs, calves, sheep and lamb , kidney , liver , spleen , "lights" lung , sweetbreads thymus or pancreas , fries testicles , tongue , snout nose , tripe reticulum and maws stomach from various mammals are common menu items.
