On a recent afternoon at the Blue Hill restaurant in Westchester County, N.Y.,  one of America’s top chefs is cooking up something daring — venison with winter fruits and vegetables. For many chefs, dishing out deer meat would be adventure enough. But Dan Barber has taken it a step further. He will be offering Blue Hill’s patrons a prime part of the venison — the heart.

“It has a silky roughness about it,” says Barber, whose restaurant specializes in using ingredients produced on local farms. He serves heart regularly and says customers love its taste. “We forget that the heart is a very active muscle,” he says. “The fact that it is so oxygenated means that it is full of flavor. You have to chew a little bit more, but there is nothing wrong with chewing your food.”

Venison heart with winter fruits and vegetables. (Photo by Jonathan Young)

Eating offal, the entrails and extremities of an animal, has long been a gastronomic delight for adventurous foodies, and in some cultures brains, tongue, sweetbreads and other organ meats are common menu items. Now, according to the trade publication “Restaurant News,” more U.S. restaurants are finding innovative ways to prepare heart. Casa Mono in New York City serves duck heart with bean stew. San Francisco’s Incanto offers heart of cow and other animals, and the Publican restaurant in Chicago grills its heart selections, which have been in consistent demand from customers, according to chef Brian Huston. “I think people order them because they know they taste good,” he says. “We serve them in small quantities, so they’re not too intimidating.”

Meat suppliers also say interest has grown. John Wood, founder of U.S. Wellness Meats in Monticello, Mo., has had to increase the number of vendors he uses to keep pace with the orders. “Our demand for beef heart has gone up briskly,” he says, estimating that heart sales have risen 40 percent in the past year.

Blue Hill’s Barber finds that diners have become bolder and more willing to experiment with new foods. “Chefs have been forced for so many years to hide heart in stews and sauces,” he says. “Now there is a recognizable interest in actually eating heart. People realize they get a new experience.”

Some chefs, like Chris Cosentino of Incanto, have long offered heart and other organ meats as menu staples. In a Vanity Fair interview earlier this year, Cosentino raved about delicacies like Scottish haggis, which contains sheep’s heart, liver and lung ground with oatmeal and cooked in the stomach. “It’s very classic, very beautiful,” Cosentino said. “There’s nothing wrong with it when it’s made well. Unfortunately in this country, everyone has become horrified by it. But that’s because we don’t like what we don’t understand.”

Food anthropologists agree that people tend to eat what they know, and offal has not historically been a staple — or a delicacy — for American diners. “Most of the time people buy meat in a package already cut up,” says Monica Smith, professor of anthropology at UCLA. “So, we have become psychologically distant from the real source of food. People still see a whole fish, but they don’t see a whole fur or feather animal. Organs are lumpy and squishy-looking, and people have probably become somewhat squeamish about them.”

The rising popularity of heart tracks in part with the expansion of Peruvian restaurants in the U.S. that serve anticuchos, an appetizer of marinated beef heart cubes grilled on skewers, says Eugene Anderson, emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. “It’s sort of the Peruvian national dish, along with guinea pig,” he says. Lima’s Taste Ceviche Bar and Restaurant in New York City offers cow heart anticuchos served with hot sauce and crispy potato for $11. It is one of the best sellers, according to a restaurant spokesperson, who says “it has become more and more popular because customers realize it is one of the best flavors you can put in your mouth.”

If eating heart is an adventure, it’s one that has a number of health benefits, says Nori Hudson, a private nutrition consultant in Berkeley, Calif., who eats heart regularly.  “The heart is the leanest muscle in the body, with the highest number of mitochondria,” she says, referring to the parts of the cell that supply it with power. Heart provides other energy-enhancing elements like creatine, which is popular with athletes for its muscle-development and energy boosting properties.

Trudy Scott, president of the board of directors of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals, says the condition of the heart is crucial to its taste. “Quality is key,” she notes. “The heart should be from an animal that is grass-fed and free of antibiotics and pesticides.” Scott advises clients who are new to eating organ meats to try it first as a pate, which is easier to stomach.

At Blue Hill, Dan Barber was offering no shortcuts to this reporter and a friend. The meat he served was cooked rare, and the thinly-sliced pieces looked like carpaccio. With some qualms, I took a small bite and found culinary nirvana. The texture was a little chewy, and the flavor intense and unforgettable. I was hooked. So was my friend. “Delicious,” she exclaimed after the first taste, her eyes closed in ecstasy. She quickly devoured the entire serving.

E-mail: lmk2175@columbia.edu