Tripe

I eat tripe once in a while at dim sum, a little dish of tripe braised in broth and ginger or with black bean and garlic sauce. It’s like chomping on a rubber band until it breaks down into digestible pieces. Yum.

Tripe is the name for the stomachs of various animals but beef tripe is the kind most people eat. Cows have four stomachs, I’m most familiar with honeycomb tripe which comes from the second. Apparently it’s meatier and more tender than the other stomachs.

I always take tripe for granted. It has to be meticulously cleaned - sometimes even bleached - and then cooked for hours to make the cow’s stomach tender enough to chew.

The natural question is why bother. I dunno, but it’s a United Nations innard, showing up in Vietnamese (pho), Mexican (menudo), and French (andouille sausage) cuisines and proving we’re really all just the same.