Mad Cow Doesn’t Stop Some From Using Brains

Mike Volkman is proud to be a carnivore.

But there are times when a slab of meat won’t cut it, and the big man’s appetite can only be satiated by a brain sandwich.

Not even the threat posed by the first known case of mad cow disease in the United States can keep the 60-year-old insurance agent from a date with fried cow brains on a bun.

“Mad cow has me a little shaky,” Volkman said recently while seated at a corner table at the Hilltop Inn, looking at a plate-sized brain sandwich. “But no guts, no glory.”

Brain sandwiches are still on the menu in Evansville.

In this southern Indiana river city and the surrounding area, folks like Volkman take pride in the local cuisine and their love of brain sandwiches, a delicacy passed down through the generations from German ancestors who settled here.

Whether made from cows or pigs, brain sandwiches still take pride of place in about half a dozen local taverns and restaurants. They are among the featured items at an annual fall festival.

Mad cow disease hasn’t kept local residents from enjoying their traditional sandwich smothered in onions and pickles and slathered with mustard or ketchup.

“I think brain sandwiches will go on for a long, long time,” Volkman said.

Across America, beef consumption appears to be holding steady as people refuse to panic, and nowhere is that more evident than in Evansville.

But food safety is creeping into local conversation in the wake of the news that a Holstein cow in Washington state tested positive in December for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

Cattle brains, spinal cords and lower intestines can contain abnormal proteins called prions that can cause BSE. It’s believed that humans who eat brain or spinal material from an infected cow can develop variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a brain-wasting illness.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced that it will ban from the food supply brains and spinal tissue from cattle older than 30 months.

“All kinds of animal brains are eaten by people all over the world, including the United States. I’m not sure it’s all that advisable, ever,” said Dr. Raymond Roos, professor and chairman of the department of neurology at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

What advice would Roos offer to someone contemplating eating a brain sandwich for the first time?

“Why would you do that?” he replied.

“I think the risk of eating this tissue may be no different now than it was a year ago or two years ago, in the sense we only have one mad cow that was identified,” Roos said.

“And it’s my understanding no central nervous system was taken from it,” he added. “On the other hand, I have to say, I think there are reasons to be cautious about considering eating central nervous system tissue, a year ago and now. It has to do with prion diseases.”