"Tripe" news and stories

From Good Dishes from Tinned Food (1939), Ambrose Heath

Note - admittedly not molded food this time, but too good to keep to myself.

I'm interrupting the semi-regularly scheduled Midnight Sausage series to share molded food images and recipes from my personal collection of early-to-mid 20th century cookbooks. There will be aspic. There will be mousse. There will be various gelatins. All will be semi-solid and of debatable degrees of edibility.

Please feel free to shimmy and shake your way to the comments section to share your very own magical, masticable molds of yore.

Previously - Jellied Veal Salad

"I wanted to be The Girl Who Is Not Afraid To Order Tripe And In Fact It Makes Her Even Cooler And All The More Sexy Because She Enjoys It. Alas, it was not meant to be." Carol at French Laundry at Home

Hear, hear!* I don't know about you, but this sort of rationale is what made me a foodie. I was a fairly picky eater growing up. I wasn't so bad that I'd eat PB&J for every meal, but if they weren't like the usual meat-potato-veggie triumvirate, or something else I'd eat normally, I'd get testy. If you were at the Mexican restaurant about 25-years ago where a little blonde girl went nuts because her beef was shaved instead of ground, that was me.

But then I got older, moved to the big city, and shed many of my food inhibitions. I hated it when my friends gazed at me in disappointment whenever I wouldn't try anything. I couldn't say no when someone slaved over a hot stove to bring me a meal full of food I didn't like. Soon, eating became an adventure -- discovering new tastes, learning about the foods, making meals fresh and fun.

When I saw a post on ZenKimchi Korean Food Journal about chitlins my first instinct was to exclaim, "Korean soul food? Say what!" Then I thought about it a little more, and I realized that with its hearty casseroles and stews, Korean cuisine has a lot in common with American soul food. It's just that the above dish of gobchang gui is, how to put this, a bit more soulful than other Korean fare I've encountered.

Technically, they're not chitlins, since they're beef, not pork, intestines. Either way, the dish sounds delicious. Some of you out there might be grossed out by the concept of eating a cow's small intestines. Not me, especially when I read that they taste like bacon and are stuffed with Korean pâté. Drool. To complete the organ meat orgy there was Makchang (sliced large intestine), beef heart and tripe smothered in pâté.

ZKFJ's author is lucky to be based in Korea. I've enjoyed Korean blood sausage in my native Queens, but have yet to encounter what amount to pâté-filled sausages. I gots to get me some gobchang y'all.

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Nicole mentioned the Independent article concerning the decline of jam in popularity in the UK. (And thanks also to EatingLeeds for the heads-up). This has been put down to a more health conscious consumer (OK, it is full of sugar but it tastes great!) and the ending of 'afternoon tea'. Personally I don't know anyone who has afternoon tea anymore - apart from tourists in posh hotels.

But the rest of the Indies article I found more interesting as it continues my post of declining 'traditional' food items in the UK. Salad Cream was saved from the culinary history books by a combination of national press pressure and consumer demand a few years ago but sales are still low in comparison to its 1970's highs. Heinz, incidentally, have introduced an Extra Light version to pander to the health lobby. Personally I prefer mayonnaise.

But then we get to products that I couldn't eat unless you paid me a huge amount of cash - tripe (oh, god no!), jellied eels (I'll really have to pass on those thanks) and lard. Now lard I do believe has a place in everyones kitchen despite its high cholesterol and fat content. It is all in the flavour after-all.

While I am a great fan of the UK's traditional dishes I won't miss the demise of tripe or jellied eels.

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