A load of old tripe?
LAST year, a BBC online feature asked whether tripe might ever make a comeback.
Very brave of the Beeb, you might think – but we’re talking cows’ stomach linings, here, not the state of public broadcasting!
Following on from this, Yougov Omnibus pollsters recently quizzed the public on 24 old-fashioned foods to determine those most at risk of extinction.
Endangered
The survey certainly gives us food for thought, if not for eating. Here are the 24 so you can have a go yourselves: tripe, giblets, eel, tongue, cockles, nettles, oxtail, rabbit, black pudding, kidneys, beef dripping, sardines, liver, winter purslane, spam, tapioca pudding, medlars, suet, bubble and squeak, semolina pudding, blancmange, corned beef, turnip, treacle.
I don’t know whether or not the pollsters ventured into the Dark Region, but that list looks a lot like bostin’ Black Country fittle to me – save for the glaring absence of grey pays n’ baircon, grorty dick and faggits n’ pays!
Joking apart, those foods would have been commonplace across the West Midlands until very recently. But, times and tastes have changed, along with the demographics. Today, we’re well on the way to being a nation of oldies, so it’s no surprise many of the younger generation turn their noses up at traditional foods they link to the “olden days”. In the case of liver – 69% of over 65s eat it compared with 29% of 18-24 year olds.
I’m under 65 and have always loved liver and kidneys – but my younger sister has never eaten it and would never try it – even at school dinners! Another case is rabbit – roast, grilled or stewed I’ll happily munch on little bunnies despite having rabbits as a kid.
Those taking part were asked whether or not they had ever eaten each of the 24 foods. Then, depending on their answer, they were asked whether or not they’d eaten it during the last five years. Those who pet had not eaten a specific food were also asked whether or not they would try it.
I don’t think of myself as a fussy eater – but I’m definitely with the two thirds of Brits who said they would not try the top three on the poll’s endangered list. Dubbed the “repulsive trio” by Yougov, it seems tripe, giblets and eel could go the way of the dinosaurs. These three are far ahead of their nearest rivals, namely tongue and cockles, shunned by 46% and 43% of Brits, respectively. No wonder you never see the sea food man in pubs these days!
So what is it with tripe – that only 4% of Brits claim to have eaten any recently?
Pepys
Let’s go back to that BBC article, written for World Tripe Day on 24th October – I kid you not! Apparently the date was chosen as famous diarist, Samuel Pepys, made a diary entry about tripe on that day, in 1662. In those days, everyone ate tripe, irrespective of their station in life.
Today, tripe’s last stronghold tends to be in the north. But, for centuries, Midlanders were tripe aficionados. Across the border in Brum, they had a passion for tripe suppers. These days you’d be hard-pressed to find the raw ingredients.
But a hundred years ago, there were tripe houses galore across the second city. Whole families tucked into this cheap, protein-rich dish, made from cows’ stomach linings, served in the liquor used to cook them. The tripe suppers often came with a side order of cow heels. They were so popular that a town crier announced when these ready-made offal meals were ready, expecting a stampede.
Towards the end of the 19th century, as Brum boomed, many of the tripe houses began to disappear. One that survived longer than most was the Original Digbeth Tripe House, still serving happy customers on Digbeth High Street in the 1880s.
Witness this dewyeyed report on the general availability of tripe:
“When the work of modern improvement in Birmingham is in many directions changing the appearance of the city, it is not unpleasant to think that the original tripe house, in Digbeth, has been spared the edacious (an old fashioned word meaning devouring or greedy) tooth of old time ... Birmingham has always been noted for its tripe and the manner of its distribution ... it is always sold “dressed” or “cooked”, and while in most places it is exposed in the market, a cold, suety mass on a skewer, in Birmingham it is sold hot, with some of the liquor in which it is boiled, and from time immemorial it was always ready at seven o’clock in the evening ...”
Our writer also claims: “A tripe supper is a peculiar Birmingham institution, and though largely indulged in by the working classes, is frequently partaken by the well-todo ... there were formerly many more “tripe houses” in the town than there now seem to exist, there being at least one to every few streets ... before the incorporation of the town, 50 years ago, there were a good number of “bellmen” or “criers” who were generally pretty well engaged ... every evening, from a quarter to seven to quarter past, those criers used to cry “Tripe” in the neighbourhood of the particular tripe house by which they were engaged ...”
An old cookery book by J.M. Sanderson, called ‘The Complete Cook’, also extols the virtues of tripe:
“In some of the English towns, particularly at Birmingham, famous for tripe, the belly or paunch of the animal, after being well-cleaned is sent to the oven in a deep earthenware pot or jar, closely covered over the top, and baked or stewed in just a sufficient quantity of water, for four or five hours, or till it is well done.
Broth
“It is sold while yet hot, in the public houses or tripe shops, at so much a “large or small cut”, with a proportionate quantity of “broth”, that is the liquor in which it has been stewed; nothing else is eaten with it, except mustard and salt. In Birmingham it is usually eaten for supper, and of course by candlelight ... a relation of ours was so fond of it, that he used to have the dining room darkened, and the candles lit, that he might partake of it for his dinner, under the same apparent circumstances as at supper ...”
In those times, dinner was the main meal of the day, taken at what we now call lunchtime. Apparently, Birmingham tripe was so addictive people from all walks of life just couldn’t get enough of it:
“Tripe cooked in the Birmingham fashion is delicious far, very far superior to that gotten in London ...”
Obviously there were, and still are, many offal devotees in the Black Country. In her book, ‘A Feast of Memories’, the queen of “bostin fittle”, Marjorie Cashmore, includes two tripe recipes, with different cooking methods. She also includes umpteen things to make with offal, like Cowheel and Beef Pudding, Potted Beef’s Cheek, Chitterlings, Soused Pig’s Feet and Kidney Pudding,
Back in the late 1960s, my great uncle Harry Hawkins, a dapper, wheeler-dealer, (some called him a spiv, given his links to the world of the real Peaky Blinders) used to regale us with memories of tripe suppers. Harry never married, seemingly living on tripe suppers and jellied eels from the market. Perhaps it was a man thing, as our dad often brought tripe home – but nothing would persuade me or my younger sister to try it.
Slimy
Years later, in the Basque region of northern Spain, tripe came back to haunt me! The Basque language being unlike any other Indo-european language, I had no idea of the menu. So, I just pointed at samples in the display cabinet.
Covered in succulent sauce, the dishes looked tempting. I tucked in, and, apart from the slimy texture, it was good.
The downside was finding ginger hairs nestling in the side dish. Complaining, somewhat nervously to a Spanish-speaking waiter, I learned I’d just devoured a tripe supper with a side order of pig’s lips!