LA TRIPE

TRIPE

BEEF TRIPE: ready to cook (bleached by the butcher)
can be purchased at supermarkets and butchers
may need to be ordered ahead of time

PART OF THE STOMACH OF AN ANIMAL FOR SLAUGHTER

Tripe is a dish that lines your stomach. Part of the stomach of a cow, tripe is divided into four components. The ‘bonnet’ or reticulum tripe, honeycomb shaped, helps regurgitate food. It is turned, with mâche lettuce and beetroot, into a salade de gras–double (tripe salad) for winter evenings. Don’t go through winter without your bonnet! Reed tripe, the abomasum, reminds us again that it’s winter. This part, located behind the stomach, helps to digest grass. Its secretions have the property of curdling milk, and so much the better because a meal without cheese is inconceivable. Bible tribe, or the omasum, plays the same role as reed tripe: grinding foods with its multiple leaves. As is always the case with tripe, it takes a very long time to cook. A good book by the fire will help you wait out the time it takes for bible tripe to become tender. Blanket or rumen tripe is the main part of the stomach. Its inner wall is smooth and its outside is lightly honeycombed. The rumen is the reservoir for food; ‘Ruminate on what you eat and it will sit well!’ Crumbed and bathed in a beurre noisette, it metamorphoses into a top-shelf tablier de sapeur.

The tripe trip starts now!