My local supermarket stocks evil looking "food"

I'm buying meat at the grocery store yesterday, and I notice that they started stocking a new item..... Only it was a bizzare and evil looking new item: Beef tripe. Holy hell, I've never seen anything quite like that. Kinda' off white and blubbery, yet thin and stringy looking. I'm having a hard time believing something that awful comes out of an animal as adorable and delicious as a cow. It was seriously creepy enough to make me not want to buy any steaks sitting adjacent to it on the shelf despite the shrink wrapping.

Sooooo.... what in the hell is that stuff? More importantly, what is it doing in a food store, and what do they expect you to do with it. Please help. I am disturbed by the whole thing, and my current knowledge of tripe begins and ends with Principal Skinner offing it to Lisa Simpson's class as a present from the meat producers.

Beef Tripe is cow stomach not to be confused with chitlins, it is one of the toughest meats you will ever attempt to chew...

And it tastes as bad as it looks...

from what i understand tripe is used in conjunction with cooking other beef or meats, its not meant to be eaten - kind of like sausage casings... you want to eat the sausage, not really the casing... but hell i dunno. I'm still confused with that frozen pork blood jelatin they sell at the vietnameses stores (ever want a wierd experience, go to one of those places, there's tons on of them in houston)

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Originally Posted by station82o

from what i understand tripe is used in conjunction with cooking other beef or meats, its not meant to be eaten - kind of like sausage casings... you want to eat the sausage, not really the casing... but hell i dunno. I'm still confused with that frozen pork blood jelatin they sell at the vietnameses stores (ever want a wierd experience, go to one of those places, there's tons on of them in houston)

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It is eaten as the main meat in meals...

To explain abit I live in the south where my fathers side of the family is VERY Southern, The family was pro black in the early days in the south when blacks as you all know were hated and therefore took up many of the southern black eating habits due to friends etc. they had...

Therefore I have seen and tried it all...

Tripe
Chitlins
Gopher (the land tortoise not the mammal)
Gator
Cooter (a fresh water turtle)

And of course the non meat foods..

Black eyes peas
Collard greens
Butter Beans
Squash
Okra

And so on and so forth....


No I dont eat that stuff now as im considered the city boy in the family, but at one time or another while I was a kid I had it...

http://www.teeuwissen.nl/beeftripewhite.jpg

Yummy!


:yuck:

JMET: how deep south do you live? I'm in Va. and I gotta say that blacks are still pretty damn hated arround here. :cry:

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Originally Posted by ShineAqua

JMET: how deep south do you live? I'm in Va. and I gotta say that blacks are still pretty damn hated arround here. :cry:

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I live in central Florida, im not saying blacks arent hated but even when my dad was a kid they were still having lynchings where his family lived.. out in the sticks...

But his family was friendly with blacks, my dads best friend growing up was also black...


This sounds silly but in the deep south living in the sticks.. this was unheard of at the time...

The only thing that kept the racist pigs off there backs was the fact that the family was known for being bad asses and not putting up with any crap.

So, it's a stomach, eh? Sign me up.

This raises another question: How are you supposed to digest something that evolved to not be digested?

And K3V, that's not even half as nasty as the Tripe I saw.

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Originally Posted by Chibi Nappa

This raises another question: How are you supposed to digest something that evolved to not be digested?

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Cows weak, Humans STRONG!

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Originally Posted by Chibi Nappa

So, it's a stomach, eh? Sign me up.

This raises another question: How are you supposed to digest something that evolved to not be digested?

And K3V, that's not even half as nasty as the Tripe I saw.

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You boil it, yes boil it.. which makes it "tender" at least more so. :yuck:

You know what makes no sense, blood sausege.

Waiter: "Would you like some blood sausege?"

Man: "Yes I would."

Waiter: "You're a stupid asshole."

Man: "Oh my."

:lol:
Describe this "blood sausage".

Take blood from a cow + cabbage + pack into sausege casing = blood sausege.

Blood and cabbage: Two great tastes that taste great together.

Shine, which part of VA do you live in? Because in my neck of the woods, that is certainly not the case. I can see that being the case in the southern-most part of the state though.

Jeremy, it would matter more if you were closer west in VA instead of south.

hee-hee JMET said "cooter"

They sell horse meat in the food stores here. It looks pretty similar to typical "cow steaks", but not quite... I am sure a few people have picked it up accidentally without realising. Egad. I have no idea what it tastes like and have no intention of finding out. I hate horses. :yuck:

Tripe isn't all that bad. It is a staple in the cuisines of many different cultures, from Spain to Vietnam.

It's especially good in pho, a type of Vietnamese stew.

They also sell it canned.

Hell, tripe/stomach lining is actually fairly popular here, seeing as how it's a key ingredient in menudo soup, which is mostly tripe and hominy...

The secret to eating any evil-looking food is to just not think about what they actually are or what they once looked like. At least the way we prepare them around here, once cooked most evil-looking foods (brains, tripe, tongue, testicles, gizzards, various other organs) don't look all that terrible...

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Originally Posted by ShineAqua

JMET: how deep south do you live? I'm in Va. and I gotta say that blacks are still pretty damn hated arround here. :cry:

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I'm farther down in Florida than JMET is, right outside of Tampa, and the racism that happens here is astonishing, and sometimes I feel like I'm back in the days of segregation.

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Originally Posted by sleeveboy

Tripe isn't all that bad. It is a staple in the cuisines of many different cultures, from Spain to Vietnam.

It's especially good in pho, a type of Vietnamese stew.

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Yeah, I'll verify this. There's a Vietnamese soup place right off of UNLV campus I go to from time to time, and beef tripe is one of the many things you can add to the soup, though I tend to avoid it in favor of beef flank steak and brisket ;)

My mom's actually using it right now, as we speak, in this funky Filipino stew called Kareh-Kareh (sp). Personally I can't stand the stuff, but a lot of native Filipinos absolutely love it :yuck:

Tripe is nasty, but if you look on all those higher shleves on the meat case, you will see all sorts of nasty stuff...

Like this...http://www.surebeam.com/

Anyone ever seen pickled tofu. Scary, scary stuff, you'd think just the look of the thing would let people know that "this is not food", but it's eaten anyway, although mostly by asians.

Scrapple, breakfast of champions!

James

Hey, I'm all about the black-eyed peas. My father was from the South, so I had some of those kinds of things growing up as a kid.

Are grits a "Southern" food as well? I could be stupid and wrong, but I think they are. Like those too.

Black-eyed peas and salt pork is greatness.

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Originally Posted by Roufuss

I'm farther down in Florida than JMET is, right outside of Tampa, and the racism that happens here is astonishing, and sometimes I feel like I'm back in the days of segregation.

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I once saw a white power guy in Houston... I wanted to break my bottle (that I had in my hand at the time) over his head. Fucking asshole.

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Originally Posted by shidoshi

Are grits a "Southern" food as well? I could be stupid and wrong, but I think they are. Like those too.

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They're a Southern food but only in the eastern South, like Georgia or the Carolinas. Only a handful really eats them in, say, western Texas.

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Originally Posted by Tracer

I once saw a white power guy in Houston... I wanted to break my bottle (that I had in my hand at the time) over his head. Fucking asshole.

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The area I live in was once a Klan hotbed so I see people of this stripe fairly often. Thing is, the Mexicans have been really fruitful lately and now outnumber the whites 10 to 1 in some areas and they often buddy up with the blacks, so the racism isn't always very outward but it's certainly there. There's just a lot of "behind the back" talk. I think I've found the reason why chickenshit is white.

My actual feelings on racism can be summed up so: Anyone who thinks their race is superior to any other hasn't been paying much attention to the people it's produced. Shit comes in all colors.

There's just no way that you can beautify this stuff:

http://www.shipbrook.com/jeff/graphics/potted1.jpg

Comes in a can.

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Originally Posted by JMET

It is eaten as the main meat in meals...

To explain abit I live in the south where my fathers side of the family is VERY Southern, The family was pro black in the early days in the south when blacks as you all know were hated and therefore took up many of the southern black eating habits due to friends etc. they had...

Therefore I have seen and tried it all...

Tripe
Chitlins
Gopher (the land tortoise not the mammal)
Gator
Cooter (a fresh water turtle)

And of course the non meat foods..

Black eyes peas
Collard greens
Butter Beans
Squash
Okra

And so on and so forth....


No I dont eat that stuff now as im considered the city boy in the family, but at one time or another while I was a kid I had it...

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Er, I don't know what all this talk is of these foods being "black"? Those are southern foods, plain and simple. Yes, some of them, if not most of them orginated from black peoples in the way they are cooked, BUT white and black people alike have been eating them sense they were thought up. Well, your average white person anway. Very rich aristoecrats may have not ate them back in the day, but now, all southerns eat them (well everything BUT the above said meats, but that has more to do with fast food places making certain types of meat seem correct, than racism. The older members of my family have eaten most of those.)

Fun Fact. With out slavery the U.S. would most likely not have BBQ. The cooking process for BBQ orginated from slave owners, for whatever reason, giving their slaves entire pigs to cook for themselves. Not having the more elaborate cooking devices of the time, the slaves learned to cook said pigs in large pits dug in the grownd, giving birth to the first BBQ. This great taste caught on pretty quickly and was loved by all races in the U.S. from coast to coast. It was so loved that it was a common food to be given out at rallies for potential ellected officals.

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Originally Posted by CynicalSphere

They're a Southern food but only in the eastern South, like Georgia or the Carolinas. Only a handful really eats them in, say, western Texas.

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That'd make sense, as my father's side comes from the Carolinas.

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Originally Posted by CynicalSphere

They're a Southern food but only in the eastern South, like Georgia or the Carolinas. Only a handful really eats them in, say, western Texas.

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Actually, you can get Grits at IHOP in Dallas. It's not that hard to find grits. Just add a lot of butter. I'm not that fond of grits, but there's nothing wrong with Black Eyed Peas.

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Originally Posted by IronPlant

Fun Fact. With out slavery the U.S. would most likely not have BBQ. The cooking process for BBQ orginated from slave owners, for whatever reason, giving their slaves entire pigs to cook for themselves. Not having the more elaborate cooking devices of the time, the slaves learned to cook said pigs in large pits dug in the grownd, giving birth to the first BBQ. This great taste caught on pretty quickly and was loved by all races in the U.S. from coast to coast. It was so loved that it was a common food to be given out at rallies for potential ellected officals.

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I think you meant Pit BBQ?

Everyone was cooking meat on an open flame in those days, but they sure were'nt burying a pig in the ground to cook it. Never knew where the idea came from, but it is a rather neat idea.

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Originally Posted by IronPlant

Fun Fact. With out slavery the U.S. would most likely not have BBQ. The cooking process for BBQ orginated from slave owners, for whatever reason, giving their slaves entire pigs to cook for themselves. Not having the more elaborate cooking devices of the time, the slaves learned to cook said pigs in large pits dug in the grownd, giving birth to the first BBQ. This great taste caught on pretty quickly and was loved by all races in the U.S. from coast to coast. It was so loved that it was a common food to be given out at rallies for potential ellected officals.

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Sounds fishy to me. Cooking food by holding it over a fire has been around since, uh, fire, hasn't it?

Unless you mean the "strips of pig meat on a bun" kind of barbeque (which I haven't seen much outside the South).

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Actually, you can get Grits at IHOP in Dallas. It's not that hard to find grits. Just add a lot of butter. I'm not that fond of grits, but there's nothing wrong with Black Eyed Peas.

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You can even get grits in Hawaii - they sell 2 brands at the supermarket near my house. I buy it sometimes, even though I'm the least "Southern" person you could imagine. Because it's so bland you can put all kinds of stuff in it and it'll still taste good - I really like maple syrup, bacon, and portuguese sausage in mine.

My favorite kind of BBQ is Jamaican Jerk. The sauce for it is made with garlic, ginger, allspice, and Scotch Bonnet (a Jamaican relative of the habanero) peppers- the most kickass kind of hot pepper out there. Jalapenos can be substituted for SBs if you prefer something milder, but IMO the Scotch Bonnet is unbeatable.

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Originally Posted by gamevet

Actually, you can get Grits at IHOP in Dallas. It's not that hard to find grits. Just add a lot of butter. I'm not that fond of grits, but there's nothing wrong with Black Eyed Peas.

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I wasn't saying you couldn't *find* grits in Texas, but they aren't a popular food here. From what friends of mine say, they're very popular in the eastern part of the South.

Personally, I hate grits because they have the texture of Malt-O-Meal prepared with jism instead of water. With or without butter they still make me want to gag...

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Originally Posted by CynicalSphere

I wasn't saying you couldn't *find* grits in Texas, but they aren't a popular food here. From what friends of mine say, they're very popular in the eastern part of the South.

Personally, I hate grits because they have the texture of Malt-O-Meal prepared with jism instead of water. With or without butter they still make me want to gag...

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I know you can get them from one end of Mississippi to the other, as I've seen them on menues for little mom and pop places all over the state, but I can't recall ever liking them. Something about them being soupy and kind of like puke.

I remember seeing cow tongue in the meat section once. What the hell do you do with that?

Thought I'd post a pic of the snack I just had. Corn Bread and a large glass of Apple juice.

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Originally Posted by gamevet

I remember seeing cow tongue in the meat section once. What the hell do you do with that?

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You cook it and eat it, just like any other meat. Make stew of it, cook it in a pie, smoke it, pickle it. It's tender and surprisingly lean, if you can put up with the idea that you're eating tongue...

(EDIT: It's tender only if you cook the fucker long enough. My mistake.)

Since we're on the topic of southern food, which rules supreme: NE South BBQ sauce (vinegar based) or SE South BBQ sauce (tomato-based)?

I prefer tomato based for red meat and chicken, but vinegar-based is really good on pork.

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Originally Posted by IronPlant

Er, I don't know what all this talk is of these foods being "black"? Those are southern foods, plain and simple. Yes, some of them, if not most of them orginated from black peoples in the way they are cooked, BUT white and black people alike have been eating them sense they were thought up. Well, your average white person anway. Very rich aristoecrats may have not ate them back in the day, but now, all southerns eat them (well everything BUT the above said meats, but that has more to do with fast food places making certain types of meat seem correct, than racism. The older members of my family have eaten most of those.)

Fun Fact. With out slavery the U.S. would most likely not have BBQ. The cooking process for BBQ orginated from slave owners, for whatever reason, giving their slaves entire pigs to cook for themselves. Not having the more elaborate cooking devices of the time, the slaves learned to cook said pigs in large pits dug in the grownd, giving birth to the first BBQ. This great taste caught on pretty quickly and was loved by all races in the U.S. from coast to coast. It was so loved that it was a common food to be given out at rallies for potential ellected officals.

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Those foods came from "blacks" because chitlins, tripe etc. were considered throw away meats that people didnt want and therefore cheap...

Collard greens and black eyed peas are mostly eaten by blacks.

These things carry on today, most whites I know dont eat this stuff, perhaps in boon stick west virginia but not around here....

But anywho.. fresh field snaps aka FRESH black eyed peas are the bomb yo...

You're wrong, Blackeyed Peas are a damn common food for alot of people. Cornbread too.

I guess you could consider some of our meals quite Southern. The Crock-Pot is good to just put a few cans of beans in, along with some bacon or ham, onions, hot sauce, etc. This is a meal that any poor college student can afford (after the price of the Crock Pot, but they last forever). Best when eaten with a side of cornbread.

And we eat black-eyed peas all the time. Had them last night, in fact.

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Originally Posted by Tracer

You're wrong, Blackeyed Peas are a damn common food for alot of people. Cornbread too.

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I said mostly, the post was mainly referring to chitlins and the like..

Not to get into a pissy fit but lets read a post, understand it, and stay calm before we reply... ;)

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Originally Posted by JMET

I said mostly, the post was mainly referring to chitlins and the like..

Not to get into a pissy fit but lets read a post, understand it, and stay calm before we reply... ;)

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What he said still stands. I don't know about where you're at, but in Texas and especially Louisiana, it's a very popular custom/superstition to eat blackeye peas at New Year's for good luck, and in Texas most people have a tendency to eat them all the time. In fact next to Pinto beans they're probably the second most popular legume out here...

I don't know about elsewhere in the South, but in West Texas white people eat "soul food" just as much as black people. There aren't too many people out here whose mouths don't water at the thought of fried chicken, BBQ, beans, blackeye peas, mashed potatoes, et al. Collards aren't as common here (do they even grow out here...?) but you can just replace those with spinach or turnip greens, they're about the same thing.

I guess that's just the end result of being an area where the influences of slavery, poor white farmers/sharecroppers, and Mexicans have all been felt. That's the essence of Tex-Mex food; all these heritages coming together.

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Originally Posted by Tones

I guess you could consider some of our meals quite Southern. The Crock-Pot is good to just put a few cans of beans in, along with some bacon or ham, onions, hot sauce, etc. This is a meal that any poor college student can afford (after the price of the Crock Pot, but they last forever). Best when eaten with a side of cornbread.

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Ah, a meal after my own heart, heheh.

Although you could go one better and use dry pinto beans and start cooking the night before. You'd lose some of the seasonings from canned beans but it'd also be cheaper. That's been a staple in my house for years and years...

AND AGAIN, im 99% referring to chitlins, tripe, and other throw away meats...

How many white people you guys know who eat chitlins often?

I can start throwing out names of black people I know who do weekly to monthly...

Nothing against them just something ive noticed..

Then again there are allot of black people who want to vomit at the thought of eating such things...

Talk about a thread going for a loop and spin.. :lol:

Speaking of Southern food, one dish that's always driven me nuts...WHAT the hell is Etoufee?? My friend Jake down Louisiana would just giggle his ass off and not tell me what it is. Me, being a lazy f*cker...never bothered to look it up. Anyone want to enlighten me?

If he giggles, it's probably horse knee or something. I wouldn't eat it.

That said, I've tried gator tail (can you eat anything else on it?) and it's quite good when fried. A little tough, though, like deer.

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Originally Posted by SapphirePhoenix

Speaking of Southern food, one dish that's always driven me nuts...WHAT the hell is Etoufee?? My friend Jake down Louisiana would just giggle his ass off and not tell me what it is. Me, being a lazy f*cker...never bothered to look it up. Anyone want to enlighten me?

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It's a spicy crawfish and vegetable stew.

No idea what the giggling is about.

Chitlins are awesome. Especially when they're fried. I used to eat them in skewers from street stalls. Their intenstines are surprisingly flavorful.

And tripe is good too. Especially if it's stewed properly.

In fact, I ate all sorts of animal parts growing up (pig trotters, fish guts, ox tongue, pig blood, etc), ... and I'm sure as hell not black.