Fried Tripe
Cut the tripe in squares, dip in beaten egg to which has been added a seasoning of salt and pepper, then dip in flour and fry in very hot lard. When of a light-brown, drain on soft paper and serve.
A four-line recipe that assumes something no longer true: that the tripe you bring home is already cooked. Everything else is straightforward frying.
- The hinge: tripe must be tender firstButchers of this period commonly sold "dressed" tripe, already scalded and boiled soft, ready to bread and fry. Tripe sold today is cleaned and bleached, and often part-scalded, but is nowhere near tender; it wants simmering in salted water — commonly something like 1½ to 3 hours for honeycomb — until a knife goes through easily. Fried straight from the package it is rubber.
- Which tripeHoneycomb (the second stomach) is the standard choice: it holds coating well and cooks more evenly than the thicker, tougher blanket or flat tripe. Buy it pale and fresh-smelling; a strong barnyard odour means it was poorly cleaned.
- Dry it before the eggBoiled tripe carries a great deal of water, and wet tripe sheds its coating in the fat. Cool it, press between towels, and let the squares sit uncovered for a few minutes before dipping.
- Egg then flourThe order here is the reverse of modern breading practice. Dipping in flour first, then egg, then flour again gives a coating that clings better — worth doing if the first version slides off.
- SquaresRoughly 2 to 3 inches. Larger pieces curl violently as they hit the fat; scoring the smooth side lightly helps.
- "Very hot lard"The book gives no temperature or depth. Hot enough to set the coating at once — in modern terms somewhere around 375°F — in whatever depth of fat the pan allows. Any vegetable shortening or neutral oil works, though lard gives the flavour the book intends. Much below that and the coating soaks rather than sets.
- Draining"Soft paper" meant unprinted kitchen paper; paper towels or a wire rack over a tray do the same job. A rack keeps the underside crisp.
- Serving and yieldThe recipe gives no quantity; a pound of cooked tripe would serve two to three as a main course. Vinegar, mustard or a sharp tomato sauce were common accompaniments, and the acid cuts the richness.
Tripe is one of the clearest markers of how differently the nineteenth-century household shopped. Offal was cheap, plentiful, and commonly, though not invariably, prepared at the butcher's, who boiled and bleached the stomachs before selling them by the pound — which is why a book like Butterick's, aimed at a broad middle-class readership, could open the recipe at "cut the tripe in squares" without further comment. Fried tripe in this style belongs to a long English and American tavern tradition, close cousin to the tripe suppers of Lancashire and the pickled tripe sold by the barrel in New England ports. Its near-disappearance from American home cooking over the twentieth century is often attributed in part to supply: once the pre-boiling stopped happening at the shop, the dish became a three-hour project rather than a fifteen-minute one. Changing tastes and the general retreat from offal are likely at least as much of the story.