Lights and Lungs

Lungs have been forbidden for human consumption in the United States since 1971, but in many other countries they are readily available. My pursuit of lungs began by chance, and this is the story of a recipe. While researching this book, I read many accounts of cooking lungs, some with very strange instructions. A reputable cooking authority told me I would have to beat the air out them with a rolling pin before I could even consider cooking them. With my weak knowledge of anatomy, I imagined myself bursting lungs like two partially inflated balloons in my kitchen. Then a friend told me that he’d read you must cook them with the trachea still attached. Why? So it could hang over the side of the pan and allow the air in the lungs to escape. This conjured up an image of independently breathing lungs floating in my saucepan; you can imagine my trepidation as I considered cooking them.