A Matter of Tripe and Death

A matter of tripe and social death to be more accurate. 

With flat cap on head, whippet down my trews, and clogs on my feet I cooked tripe one night last week. It is something that I make infrequently, though the Dear Leader (may her reign of terror never end) enjoys it as much as I do. Perhaps it is tripe's association with poverty that we'd prefer to detach ourselves from. 

For the record the tripe I used was the prepared version sold in Booth's, supplied by Andy Holt's Real Lancashire Black Pudding Company, and very good it is too. The recipe I used was my standard one for the stuff - for two of us I prepared about a pound and a half of chopped onion, three quarters of a pound of that tripe cut into commemorative stamp rectangles, lots of pepper, a bit of salt, a grind of nutmeg (posh aren't we?) and a pint of milk all in one pan brought to a simmer and cooked very slowly thus for about an hour. The cooked milk, an antique ivory (who let Nigel Slater in here?), is thickened with a roux before being returned to the tripe and onions and the lot served with buttery mash. 

The result is delicious, almost too sweet for a savoury dish. It slips down the throat beautifully, the tripe with a texture/feel like oysters, the onions melted into the sauce until their presence is hard to detect. This is something that merits inclusion in a meal with friends, but I would not dare to because of its poor origins.The French are far less class conscious about their food, indeed they are proud when dishes have peasant origins, but we still seem intent on following their haute cuisine rather than cuisine paysanne or even bourgoise. In this context a typically British saw springs to mind - it is social death to serve offal at a dinner party. 

Why is that?

I would welcome a plate of kidneys devilled or otherwise at some social troughing. I think there are few meats as delightful as lamb's liver, if it is cooked so the inside remains pink and moist. Of all the beef stews (casseroles or perhaps ragout, surely - Mrs Bottomley-Smythe) oxtail is the most unctuous and satisfying. Do sweetbreads, horribly expensive and hard to source, still count as offal? As with the lamb's liver, cooked with a gentle hand they are sublime. I love pig's trotters cooked to jellied perfection. 

Will I then have the courage of my convictions (I rarely do) and get around to serving say a tripe amuse bouche or hors d'oeuvre (there we are again, as so often in culinary matters we slip into French to 'raise the tone,' as per Mrs Bottomley-Smythe) to dinner party guests? Probably not. In Britain even in 2015 it would still be social death. So in a French saying of which Mrs B-S would not approve, vive la revolution! Aux tripes, concitoyens.

Ribs, Deliciousness and Dignity

If I had to name my favourite meat it would be pork ribs. They tick several of my personal boxes: quite cheap, require care in cooking, and are something for relaxed dining - you have to eat them with fingers not fighting irons.

A digression: we have a little family game, if it can be called that, of creating a menu for the overly dignified. Imagine your particular hate figure of the day, say a pompous politician: what do you serve them that will bring them down a peg or two? Not nasty foods, but messy. Watermelon slices without cutlery. Spaghetti with a liquid sauce is a good choice; I think a whole crab or lobster takes some beating, cracking claws and sucking meat out of them; a soup I was given (hmm, thinks...) on my first trip to Indonesia, whose main component was fish heads. Pig's trotters. You get the idea. BBQ spare ribs fits that scenario too.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Mansion House Speech gathering was given such a menu? Politicians, bankers, media tarts and dignitaries with faces dripping with crab juices, stained with BBQ sauce, their court dress jackets or formal gowns splashed with ragu. Not going to happen sadly. Can you imagine the devastation Nicholas Soames and Eric Pickles could cause during that meal? Eating people is of course wrong, but it's hard not to think of either or both eyeing neighbours covered in sauce and not for a second being a bit tempted.

Tonight we are eating two racks of pork ribs, a reward for Sternest Critic in midst of exams, and for us all as we have managed the two veggie nights and one fish this week. They went into the oven to steam gently at two thirty, the smell of the meat and the spicy dry-rub (cumin, celery salt, fennel seed, two dried chilies, salt, pepper, juniper berries, smoked paprika thanks for asking) now permeating the whole house, and will have in total three hours of such treatment before being finished with a coating of sauce in a hotter oven.

Another hurrah for Morrison's on this too, they always have ribs on their butchery shelves, with Booth's it is about 50/50, Sainsbury's one trip in four or five unless you want to buy ready-processed pre-sauced ones, which I don't. Two substantial racks cost well under £6, the price of one half-decent sirloin steak but they'll make a feast for three of us.

Two Reasons for Shopping at Morrison's

My normal shopping run is done at Sainsbury's, merely because it's five minutes by car. I buy plenty of meat and good cheese at Booth's, paper-goods and Parmesan at Lidl, but don't often venture to Morrison's as it is  a 15-minute drive. As I was on another errand that took me near there today, however, I did my weekly shop in the store, and was again impressed.

It was not the fact that the end bill was definitely cheaper than I'd have paid at Sainsbury's, whatever their special offer guarantees say. It was the meat and veg that shone out as so much better.

As to the meat: their range of cuts is far wider, and the meat just looks better than JS's does. Lamb ribs, pork ribs in the piece, pork hock, ham hock, hearts, pig's trotters, crackling sheets, and plenty of other cheaper options that indicate they have confidence those shopping there know how to cook. 

I was sorely tempted by the trotters, one of my favourite things, but SC loathes them and Ruth doesn't care for them.  There is another cook book in that - in my business travel days I made a point of eating trotters whenever I saw them, which means I have fond culinary memories of a couple of Chinese versions (one of them another thing where star anise lifted a dish), one a stew thing, the other a dim sum platter; a Portuguese stew with chick peas; Ste Menehould breaded trotters in France (when I ordered these the French colleague dining with me accused me of not being English, which for the French is a compliment I think); and a spicy chorizo-enriched stew in Bilbao. 

The fruit and veg section has kept up the campaign started some time ago to expand the offer - lots of varieties of mushrooms, for example, along with a good selection of exotics. I didn't go mad, but along with the usual stuff bought frisee and plantain which would not normally feature on my list.  

I admire their courage, presenting the market with a chance to cook proper food, to try new things, and to enjoy cheap cuts along with the steaks and roasts. Two racks of pork ribs are now in our freezer for either a pig-out of BBQ ribs one night, or as starters for two different Chinese meals, and our Friday-night-is-steak-night for SC and self will be with two small but thick pieces of rump each (a bargain because of the size), bulked out with a lamb cutlet that the butcher cut from the carcase for me as they had none left when I asked. 

Winging It

There is no reason why an austerity cook should not find great ways to tickle the taste buds - survival is not enough. That is one of the gripes I always have with healthy eating gurus, who forget that a nutritious diet of brown rice and cabbage water (or whatever the current fad may be) is bloody miserable - the soul and spirit need nourishment too.

A regular treat for us is chicken wings done with various different sauces or marinades. Here btw is another point on which I agree with Nigel Slater, the wing for me is the best bit of the chicken. I ask for them rather than breast when we eat a roasted bird.

Last night's version was a £2.85 cartonful from Sainbury's cooked in a roasting pan that can go on the hob. I fried them in minimal oil, as the pan is non-stick and the chicken skin gives out plenty of fat. Once they had started browning I poured in a glug or two of soy sauce and a good shake of 5-spice powder, tossed the chicken in this and then put them in the oven (already had other stuff in it) at 180C for 30 minutes. They came out sticky, fragrant and sweet, the best finger-food there is, part of the treat being that we ate them in front of the TV instead of at the table.

A farm shop butcher I use sometimes, a bit out of the way so not as often as I'd like, gave me a whole bag of wings one time, must have been 30 in there, as they couldn't sell them (and I was buying a shipping load of other meats). Free is good. Another even more distant shop (was on my route home when I used to work in industry) threw in free ox kidney and liver, pig's trotters (wonderful things), and fat for use in making pate. Not something that many supermarkets will do.