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T is for 60 Pounds of Tripe

"How come you have so much tripe?" I asked the Mama, as I stared at a large clear plastic bag full of white, honey-combed cow stomach lining.

"Your godfather gave it to me," she said.

"That's a lot of tripe. How many pounds is that?

"Twenty."

"What are you going to do with all that tripe?"

"Put it in the freezer."

I lugged the heavy bag to the big freezer in the garage. What the heck? On top of other more frozen items was another large clear plastic bag of tripe.

Just as I closed the freezer, Frances, one of the Mama's friends walked up the driveway. The garage door was open. "Hello. Is your mom home?"

"She's in the house. Come inside," I said.

"I need to get something out of the car first," Frances said. "I have something for your mom."

She ran out of the garage. I opened the door and yelled into the house, "Mama! You have a visitor." Then I went to see if Frances needed help.

As I neared her car, I saw Frances pull out a large white item from her trunk. A blanket? No. Oh no!

Frances handed me a large clear plastic bag full of white, honey-combed cow stomach lining. Another twenty pounds!

"Your mama told me that she was hungry for tripe. She wanted me to buy her some, if I saw any. I was lucky. The butcher had tripe today."

"Thank you," I said. "She's going to be very happy to see the tripe."

That happened a few months after the Daddy died, more than 30 years ago. I have no idea what the Mama did with the 60 pounds of tripe.


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Comments

  1. All that tripe will make your family the healthiest soup in captivity. I always made the cat's food and added some kind of organ meat but cats are finiky. I had a huge roaster full of chicen all ground up and added some tripe. That little smartie would not touch any of it. One sniff and she walked away, but Cody was happy with the tripe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Mama made a delicious tripe soup that's almost like menudo. When I was a kid, the parents would parboil the tripe and mix that with raw liver and vinegar. It was tasty. I wouldn't eat that today though unless I had raised the cow myself.

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  2. Oooh, now that's something i never would have imagined all by myself . . 60 lbs of tripe.
    jeepers.

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    Replies
    1. I can still see the shocked look on the Mama's face when she saw the tripe that Frances brought. Thank goodness, nobody else brought her tripe.

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  3. That's a lotta tripe! That could feed a third world planet.

    Stephen Tremp
    A-Z Co-host
    T is for Telepathy, Telekinesis, and Teleportation

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  4. Some things are best left a mystery!!! :)

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    Replies
    1. I must've asked her what she did with all the tripe. But, because I have no memory of her answer, which I'm sure I would've remembered, I'm sure she ignored me and changed the subject.

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  5. Yikes! I'm sure your mom put it to good use! I've never had tripe stew that I am aware of, so I can't remember what it's supposed to taste like, but your mom must have loved it.
    Maui Jungalow

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    Replies
    1. Have you ever eaten menudo from a Mexican restaurant? That's pretty close to how she made it. Now and then I order menudo for us.

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  6. Susie,

    My imagination is going wild! What does anyone do with 60 lbs of tripe? Wouldn't this make a wonderful start to a story? It's the sort of beginning that would keep me reading to find out what happened next. Could you perhaps finish it as a piece of fiction?

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    Replies
    1. You're on to something Sue. It would surely be closure for me to imagine what happened to the 60 pounds of tripe.

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  7. Um...stomach lining? No thanks and I don't think I want to know what she did but still.....did she cook for a group of people?

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    Replies
    1. That I don't know. At the time, I was living in San Francisco and would come down every other weekend.

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  8. Wow that is a lot of tripe. Guess she could have invited over he neighborhood for soup :).

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    Replies
    1. I think the neighbors where she used to live would've enjoyed it. Now that I think of it, she probably gave some away to the neighbors.

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Thanks for the good cheer. :-)

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