Recipe(tried): Cod tongue!!

Honestly! I'm not pulling your leg!!

In February /March hords of Atlantic cod migrate to the cost of Northeern Norway, to Lofoten and Vesteralen, to spawn. They are then fished upon in an hectic,busy, strenous season. There are lots of boats, and fishermen and boats comes from afar. The fish are opened, liver and roe is taken care of, heads are cut off, and the fish is partly made into fillets, partly salted and partly hung outdoors to dry into dried fish used for lots of things later. Mostly exported.

All - well, many - of the kids in those fishing villages earn good money hurrying down to the quays/piers after school cutting cods tounges out of all the discarded heads. They have a spiked stick driven into the floor. They take the head, thread it down on the spike from underside of the jaw. Then with a quick cut they cut off the tounge together with two small muscles under the tounge. The head is then thrown away and taken care of - dried and used for manufacture of fertilizing, or made into food for fox, mink etc.

Out of season, when the cod is somewhere else and is fished upon, we buy them from russian fishermen. The seamen make an extra buck or ten by doing the same as the kids. Then they sell them to the shops in towns in Finnmark county.
The tounge is from 1/2 to 2 inches, totally boneless and with a firm, but not chewy skin. The meat under the tounge is white and firm, and has a "seafood" quality in taste and texture, the tounge itself is more jellyish, but with a very nice taste.

We use to make them "a la meuniere" - coat them in flour with salt and pepper and fried until crisp on the outside. Or we dip them in eggs and breadcrumbs and fry them, or dip them in a batter and deep fry them with aioli - like squid.

Some people salt them slightly and poach them, serve with hollandaise or someting.

We somethimes turn them in flour and fry them, then let them simmer in a mixture of low fat sour cream and milk with a drop of worshestersauce ---
Cods' tounges are good, freezes well, medium cheap, healthy (probably) and give a good feeling of using ther resourses totally. Nothing edible should be thrown away!!