bEDZINS aND cOW'S bRAINS*

He once ate cow’s brains, so he told me, fricasseed with Spanish onions, leeks and a pullet of garlic. He said they tasted like porridge without the brown sugar, placental, mushy and bland, but overwhelmingly pleasant. An aftertaste, he said, that left him feeling rheumy and ill at ease. I asked him, I did, if he’d ever eaten sweet breads or a kidney stropped in blackstrap molasses, or a mouthful of peas shucked by a Bedzin? He said no, he hadn’t, but that he'd once met a Bedzin at a bordello in the north of France, on a skulduggery trip with a guy named Phil Scrofulous who had unappealing body odour and half an ear.