"Something the heart must have to cherish, Must love, and joy, and sorrow learn; Something with passion clasp, or perish, And in itself to ashes burn." — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hyperion (bk. II, introduction)

"Choose hearts that are fresh-smelling, plump, and red."

Sharon Tyler Herbst, The Food Lover’s Companion

Therein lies the true difference between the cook and the poet; those whose rough hands peruse tender flesh with the goal of evisceration, and those whose light touches are the ends of their actions; those who toil to create the dish, and those to whom the dish is presented by gloved hands on flawless china. This coming Monday we celebrate, in full hot-pink and lavender regalia, Valentine’s Day, a day when cooks and poets working at the peak of their craft collide head on in dining rooms across the country.

There’s not really any rivalry that exists between the two, just some differences that lie in the way each views certain organs. The heart, as you might have guessed, is particularly susceptible at this time of year to overexposure at the hands and pens of the more literary-minded — especially those in the card-writing division at Hallmark. And while I have given my poetic heart to someone in ceremony, and at times in my youth have cried out when my poetic heart was broken, I propose we try a different route this year:

Let’s eat one! I mean, a real one!

Now don’t get all squeamish on me here. People have been using every part of most every animal they kill for tens of thousands of years; if there’s anything us modern humans can be accused of, it’s not using enough of what we purchase. If you lean toward the meat-eating side of things — and if you don’t, keep reading, you might just become a convert after this — you should be ashamed of yourself if you only eat the sirloin, tenderloin, and hamburger of the friendly cow. That makes up such a small percentage of the carcass weight, it’s ridiculous. And the pig! You can eat everything on the pig except the "oink," as the old saying goes, so why don’t we? Hell, we should even find a way to eat the "oink"! How hard can it be, in this, the Great Age of the Camera-Phone?

Before I throw some recipes out there, let’s look at the heart, itself. Again, we’re not talking about the thing that "without a stain knows perfect ease" (Goethe), or "a heart with room for every joy" (Philip James Bailey), but more like this one, from Larousse Gastronomique:

"A type of red offal from various animals, which must be red and firm when bought. Remove any hard fibers and any clots of blood, if necessary, by soaking it in cold water. Heart is devoid of fat and is inexpensive. It is considered to be an excellent dish despite its lack of gastronomic repute."

Perfect for our usage. No sentimentality, so hyperbole, just what we need to know when at the local variety-meat monger. It’s poetry in itself, really, the image of a heart, red and firm, standing out among the grey and the brown while it waits for its one and only to take it home, and consume it in a wash of wine . . . oops! Let’s move on before I start to analogize!

Believe it or not, there were a number of recipes I had to sift through before I found one I liked. Starting with the most basic (my mother’s tradition of boiling the giblets of the turkey in salted water, and then cutting the little heart and liver into pieces for us children to eat), I moved to the more complicated (Matelote of Ox Heart, which takes eight or nine hours to prepare), and what with the multiple beef-heart recipes for fish food that exist online I had my hands full. But in browsing a series of recipes, I came across one in the French tradition which was appealing not because it was incredibly technical, but because it shot down my thesis and bridged the gap between the quaintly poetic and the physical act of cooking. It’s what the French do so incredibly well: Imbue their cuisine so deeply with tradition, art, and feeling that the two are inextricably intertwined. This recipe is simple, but beautiful, and ripe for poetic interpretation.

CASSEROLE OF CALF’S HEART À BONNE FEMME

From Larousse Gastronomique:

Clean the heart, season with salt and pepper, and brown it in butter in a casserole, traditionally made of earthenware. Add pieces of potato, small glazed onions, and strips of streaky bacon that have been lightly fried in butter. Cook over a gentle heat for 30 minutes.

Andy King can be reached at dinnerwithandy@yahoo.com