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Cooking of True Proteids Continued: Meat: Tripe
BROILING COOKED MEATS We have said that only tender meat - meaning by this naturally tender meat was suitable for broiling, but there are one or two varieties of meat that are first made tender by long, slow cooking, and then broiled to improve the flavor. The foremost of these are tripe and sweetbreads. Tripe is an inexpensive article of food that may be served in many appetizing ways. Perhaps the best of these, as it is certainly the simplest, is by broiling. Sweetbreads in some sections are considered a choice tid bit, and a great delicacy, and bring a high price, 75 cents and $1.00 per pair. In other localities they are given or thrown away, and in country places, where there is only a moderate demand for them, they sell for twenty to forty cents a pair. Both of these articles are well adapted to the needs of the family of two. Tripe may be purchased fresh or pickled. In buying fresh tripe get only enough for one meal, about a pound. More of the pickled article may be purchased, as it will keep in the refrigerator a week or longer. Presumably the tripe is tender when purchased. If this be not the case, it must be simmered until tender in boiling water. Sweetbreads spoil very quickly, and must be cooked as soon as purchased. Let stand in cold water an hour or more, changing the water often; remove veins, skins, etc., cover with boiling water and let simmer, nearly an hour. Drain and cover with cold water. When cold wipe dry and set aside until ready to use.
BROILED SWEETBREADS Cut the sweetbreads in halves lengthwise, brush them with softened butter and broil over a rather dull fire, about five minutes, less rather than more, turning them every thirty seconds. Baste with butter once or twice. Set on a hot dish, spread them with Maitre d' Hotel butter and serve at once. Peas, asparagus tips, creamed potatoes or celery accompany the dish. Macaroni in tomato sauce with cheese is also good with this dish. BROILED HONEYCOMB TRIPE Brush over both sides of the tripe with melted butter or bacon fat, then pat on a board on which sifted bread crumbs have been spread, first on one side then on the other; set into a hot well-oiled broiler and cook over a bed of coals or under a gas flame from four to eight minutes. Under the gas flame turn but once. Over the coals turn every thirty seconds. Spread with Maitre d' Hotel butter. If the tripe be fresh, a teaspoonful of lemon juice should be gradually beaten into the butter.
Two broiled offal dishes that depend entirely on what happens before the broiler: the meat is simmered tender first, and the fire only browns it and carries the butter.
- Tripe must be fully tender firstBroiling adds four to eight minutes of surface heat and nothing more. "Presumably the tripe is tender when purchased" was true of shop tripe a century ago; most tripe sold now, even labelled bleached or scrubbed, needs 1½ to 3 hours at a bare simmer before it is pleasant to eat. Test by biting a corner, not by the clock.
- Pickled versus freshPickled tripe was held in vinegar brine and keeps, as the book says, a week or more refrigerated; soaking and draining before cooking will reduce the sourness. Pickled tripe is now hard to find, so most readers will be working with fresh tripe, which is the case the recipe's final note covers: beat a teaspoonful of lemon juice into the butter.
- Honeycomb tripeThe second stomach of the ox, the pocketed kind. It suits this treatment because the cells hold crumbs and butter; smooth or blanket tripe has no such texture to catch them.
- "A rather dull fire"Moderate radiant heat, not a full blast. Under a modern broiler, set the rack 5 to 6 inches from the element rather than the usual 3, so the crumbs colour in the time it takes the butter to heat through.
- The broiler meant a basketA "hot well-oiled broiler" here is a hinged double wire grid that clamps the food and is turned bodily over coals. The recipe's instruction to turn only once under the gas flame reflects the different set-up, where heat comes from one side only.
- Maitre d'Hotel butterNot defined on this page: soften butter and work in chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper, roughly a tablespoon of parsley and a teaspoon of juice to a quarter cup of butter. It goes on cold so it melts over the hot meat at the table.
- Handling the sweetbreadsThe hour of soaking and water changes should happen in the refrigerator, not on the counter. Sweetbreads are highly perishable, as the text says; buy them the day you cook them, and complete the simmering and chilling the same day.
- Sweetbread pricesThe 75 cents to $1.00 a pair quoted as the high end was a substantial sum at the time. The contrast with country places where they were given away reflects local demand, as the author says, not a difference in quality; today they are generally a specialty butcher item.
- YieldA pound of tripe or one pair of sweetbreads serves two, with the vegetable or the macaroni in tomato sauce the author suggests.
Tripe and sweetbreads sit together in this chapter because both are what the period called "true proteids" from parts of the carcass outside the main joints, and both suited a household of two: they came in small units and did not leave a joint's worth of leftovers. Tripe is ruminant stomach lining, honeycomb being the reticulum, and it belonged to the older tradition of eating everything the butcher had — tripe shops and tripe suppers were a normal urban institution in Britain well into the twentieth century. Sweetbreads are the thymus and pancreas of a calf or lamb; the "bread" in the name is generally traced to an Old English word for flesh rather than to bakery, though that reading is traditional rather than proven. The author's aside that they were prized in some places and thrown away in others is a fair picture of offal, where local demand and extreme perishability governed what a thing was worth; the delicacy status won out, and both these dishes have since moved from economy cookery to restaurant menus.