Eating brains is very simple. You insert a piece of it into the orifice slightly below your own brain, chew about twice, and slowly encourage it to find its way down the length of your spinal cord to the orifice slightly below where it branches off. Only the first part is tricky, and in order to surmount this difficulty certain things must be done.
Here is a goat brain:
Now at this stage of the cooking it is operating only at a slightly lower level of cognition than when it was in the actual goat. The biggest difference is that I have removed an outer membrane, which comes off with similar ease to removing the skin from an octopus after it has been cooked. Of course, it is very difficult to tell how big it is without some comparison, so here it is next to a human brain.
Maybe five or six healthy mouthfuls depending on how indulgently you consume food. Just in case this doesn’t quite help, I’ve included a final picture of both next to the brain of the average political partisan during the 2016 election cycle. This should clear things up entirely.
As you can see, intelligence is a question of processing and composition rather than size, much like the brain of a goat compared to the slightly larger brain of the sheep. Although the partisan’s brain is larger, it is comprised of simple vegetal matter that generates its neural network through fractal-like repetition of bullshit. Additionally, if turned over, one finds that the partisan cerebellum—the part of the cranial mass that interprets sense data—is nothing more than an underdeveloped cellulose stump, which, for the trivia nuts out there, is the etymological root of the term “stump speech.”
All semi-joking aside, the actual flavor of a brain is the only thing that grants it some redeeming culinary value. It tastes like nothing except for a mild and odd iron taste, as if you were eating a piece of beef that had all flavor removed except for that single note. I have to admit, it’s a strange experience to taste meat flavored like everything except meat, but one which I powered through.
What really has to be overcome is the consistency. It is like no other part of the animal. It is as creamy and soft as the white of a soft poached egg cooked without vinegar. To prep, you have to soak them in water or milk first to remove any blood or lingering memories of a happy free-range life, and then cook it in one of several manners that betray its functional culinary value.
The most common is to cover in some sort of batter and deep fry to make a fritter. Now why do people deep fry odd cuts of meat? Simple. It masks any shitty aftertastes or off-putting flavors so all you taste is fried. Hence, it covers up the less-than-desirable iron taste with an internal consistency that is as inconsequential as whatever is inside the crunchy extra bits you get at the bottom of the box at Long John Silver's. Result: you don't taste it.
The next most common is an Indian dish that goes by several names. Called Behja Fry or Maghaz Masala depending on preparation and region, the technique is to produce an extremely flavorful curry gravy that...covers up the less-than-desirable iron taste and provides dirt-cheap protein for starving Indian peasants. Result: you don't taste it.
I think we all see where this is going.
The final preparation that has garnered attention and curiosity from those who watch a lot of Youtube videos is the famous brain ravioli made by Mario Batali’s grandmother. Now this is the dead giveaway for the reason one adds brain.
I have seen Batali himself make this, with accompanying footage of his grandmother doing the same. The filling consists of sausage, ricotta, spices, herbs and other things, including a 1 lb. calf’s brain cut into incredibly tiny pieces. This filling is then blitzed and put into the ravioli.
Realize the intent here. Sausage is comparatively expensive for a post-fascism, impoverished Italian family, and brain is dirt cheap. It adds no flavor apart from that which is obliterated by the spicy sausage and seasoning, and it’s reduced to nothingness in the blender. Why add it? Simple. You’ve just made one more pound of sausage ravioli for a tenth of the price. So you see, even the Italians, a people whose culinary tradition is one of highlighting the very best of their bountiful produce and meats by serving them untrammeled and worthy of enjoyment in their own singular right, thereby celebrating the joy of what the good lord has given them for being lucky enough to live there, will still go to incredible efforts to pulverize a brain into unrecognizable paste. It is the one ingredient in Italian cooking I know of where an ideal preparation is considered one in which nobody ever knows it's there. And just in case one might taste it, Batali gives the recipe for the manner in which his grandmother typically served it:
Braised oxtail ragu. Another pitifully cheap part of the animal for a poor rural family, that can actually be made to taste delicious despite its unglamorous origin. Therefore, if the sausage didn’t do the trick of covering up the iron flavor, a ridiculously rich and meaty sauce with chunks of beef is going to relegate the brain to a literal non-entity in the dish.
Result...
...you don't taste it.
Batali himself probably wouldn’t have even known brain was in there if his grandmother hadn’t told him or he peeked over the counter one day, and I’m guessing he had to press her because it was her “secret ingredient.”
As an appendix—perhaps the only organ less useful for eating and the only one that positively discourages gustation because it could possibly get infected and kill you— there is one more not unknown preparation that is in some ways the most and least obvious. Toss it in scrambled eggs and you won’t even notice it’s there. In truth, it's a horrifying waste of your time, money and breakfast. If you’re not told you’ll probably suck it down and wonder why that particular chicken over-filled its eggs with albumen.
So that’s it. My final verdict is that an ingredient that adds absolutely nothing and is much grosser than better alternatives need not find its way into my kitchen again, and I have nothing more to say on the subject. If you want to try brain, poach an egg: it will taste better. If you hate eggs, get soft tofu: it will taste better. If you must try it, do it, say you did it, and don’t bother getting it again, not because you didn’t like it but because it’s just not worth the effort. You see, the final nail in the coffin is that, because nobody really cooks with it, it’s more expensive too. Like shark fin soup, brain will, even at its very, very best preparation, add nothing but a little gelatinous bulk to an otherwise perfectly serviceable dish.
Be warned though; some day if you come to my house for dinner I may—may— be a real asshole and add it to ice cream right at the end with some cinnamon and nutmeg, and tell you afterwards what I did when you ask how I got the ice cream so damn creamy.
Answer: goat brains. Response? Rattling mine around in my head with a short left hook to the temple. In my life I’ve deserved a lot of those.