"Especially Agreeable" Liver and Onions

The 1947 Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking I inherited from my mother-in-law says that one should have "Liver or other variety meat" once a week. My guess is that this is partially an economic consideration, but in general I approve of the sentiment and am making it a goal (along with fish or seafood at least once a week, which was something of a lofty goal for most people in 1947).

Since the cookbook inspired me to buy some beef liver from Groff's Content this week, it seemed only right to look to it for guidance in cooking. I really wanted liver and onions, and for this basic dish the cooking itself wasn't anything I don't already do: heat the griddle and add the fat; saute the liver about 2 minutes on a side, push the liver off to one side and cook the sliced onions (and, for me, mushrooms) in the area where you cooked the liver, adding more fat if necessary; plate the liver and put the onions over. Picture below shows me just starting to cook the onions.

The new thing I tried thanks to the book followed from the section "Removing Skin and Tubes from Liver," in which Ms. Given tells us how to do this. Essentially, one removes the outside skin of the liver by lifting with a knife and peeling, and removes the tubes by cutting them out with sharp pointed scissors as shown in the picture below. "This leaves liver looking somewhat torn, but the tears will not be seen after cooking, and the liver will be especially agreeable to eat."

So I cut out the tubes (my slice of liver already was skinned). And she was right. The liver was especially agreeable to eat. It was uniformly tender and had none of the "chewy" bits I'm accustomed to in a slice of beef liver. Phil also thought it was a lot better. So, a new technique from an old, classic book.