Tripe, take two

I decided to give poor old tripe another chance, especially after a friend sent me this link: http://tripemarketingboard.co.uk/ . My favourite quote on the site has to be this:  “I’m determined not to starve in a post-apocalyptic world. You know, after the Little Green Men turn all the cows inside out, tripe will be the ‘low-hanging fruit.'”

To stewe tripes (A Propre new booke of Cokery, 1545)

Take a pynte of clret wyne and set it upon the fier and cutte your tryppes in small peces and there to put in a good quantitie of synamon and gynger and also a sliced onion or twaine and so let theim boyle half an houre and then serve them upon soppes.

This is what I started out with. It was about 8 inches long and 3 inches wide.

I didn’t have any claret wine or clarrey, but I had a bit of sherry so I bodged the recipe together by using some sherry (already quite sweet), a tsp of honey, a tsp of cinnamon and a tsp of ginger, along with one chopped onion. I added in a grind of pepper and, towards the end of cooking, a pinch of salt. Another friend advised cooking low and slow to prevent the rubbery texture, so I let the mixture simmer slowly for close to an hour. Then I spooned some over a small piece of white bread:

This version had a nice hot gingery flavour but it still had a little bit of chewiness that the Tripe Marketing Board assures me is normal.

 

 

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Tripe

In a moment of weakness at the grocery store, I picked up a package of tripe. It was inexpensive, fits well with my commitment to nose-to-tail eating, and I knew there were medieval and renaissance recipes for it. Still, I have been rather nervous to try it.

The first experiment has been “To frye Trypes” from the 1545 A Propre new booke of Cokery (http://www.godecookery.com/trscript/trscript.html). It’s a simple recipe:

Take your Trypes and cutte them in small peces and put them into a pan & put therto an onyon or two & a dissh of swete butter and let them frye tyll they be brown / and than take them out & set them upon a chafyngdisshe and put therto a lytel verges (verjus) & ginger & serve it.

I took half the piece of honeycomb beef tripe (maybe 1/4 lb), and sliced it into tiny pieces. I chopped up an onion, and added 2-3 Tbsp of butter. I melted the butter and started the onions, then added the ripe and sautéd until the meat was cook and began to brown. I put it on my serving dish and added about 2 Tbsp of verjus and 1/4-1.2 tsp of ground ginger.

The result was a lovely golden concoction:

 

The beauty of the food did not disguise the texture, which was a bit like chewing rubber bands. I would not have been able to choke it down had it not been in tiny pieces. The flavour was okay, if bland. It would have been improved with wine – lots and lots of wine, in a cup and not in the dish.

 

 

 

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