Today is World Tripe Day. 10 things you probably didn’t know about tripe:
Today is World Tripe Day because Samuel Pepys ate some on this date in 1662. He wrote in his diary: “So home and dined there with my wife upon a most excellent dish of tripes of my own directing, covered with mustard."
His experience with tripe wasn’t always so great. On April 9, 1664 Pepys again reports eating tripe for dinner but later, “I found myself sick in my stomach and vomited, which I do not use to do.”
So what is tripe? It’s the stomach of an animal, usually a ruminant, such as a Cow.
Cows have four stomachs but tripe is generally made only from the first three, and each stomach produces a different kind of tripe: “Blanket” tripe comes from the first stomach, “honeycomb” tripe from the second and “book, bible or leaf” tripe from the third.
To dress tripe, the stomachs are cleaned and the fat trimmed off. It is then boiled and bleached. Tripe dresser was once a profession in its own right.
Dressed tripe was a popular, nutritious and cheap dish for British working class people from Victorian times until the latter half of the 20th century. However, in recent years its popularity has declined, although some celebrity chefs are fuelling a bit of a revival.
Tripe is still a popular dish in parts of continental Europe such as Portugal, Spain, France and Italy.
In France, a very popular dish is tripes à la mode de Caen. In Spain callos a la madrileña are served as tapas. In Portugal,'tripas à moda do Porto', a tripe stew made with white butter beans, carrots, paprika and chouriço. It is so loved that residents of Porto are called 'Tripeiros'. In Spain and Portugal "tripas" can mean small intestines as well, as in Tacos de tripa — Mexican tacos filled with soft or crunchy fried small intestines.
Tripe is low in calories and fat and an excellent source of Zinc, vitamin B-12 and Calcium.
The Taming Of The Shrew is the only Shakespeare play that specifically mentions eating tripe. However the word “tripe” as an insult has been around since the 16th century and Shakespeare also used the word in that context, in Henry IV Part 2, when Doll Tearsheet calls First Beadle a “tripe-visag’d rascal”.
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Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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