If restaurant owner Jean-Claude Lefevre puts both spaghetti bolognese and kidneys on the day’s menu, he knows he will get twice as many takers for the spaghetti.
Tripe, testicles, tongue and other assorted innards from beef, sheep or pigs and lumped together in France under the single heading of tripe, or ”triperie”, have fallen out of grace in recent years.
Now the industry is taking the bull by the horns, touting November as ”the month of tripe”, confident economic slowdown can boost sales of the poor man’s leftovers.
”There are people who still love tripe and tongue and trotters when they’re well prepared,” said Lefevre, a self-confessed lover of animal entrails and other such bits and pieces who serves over 100 lunches a day in his central Paris restaurant ”La Bourse”.
”But they tend to be older, to like traditional fare. Young people are not so keen.”
After two decades catering for famished traders and other business types, his tradition-oriented kitchen continues to offer tongue or veal’s head around once a week, specially during winter, but stopped serving up pan-friend brain or sweetbreads years ago.
Still a classic gourmet staple around Rome and Palermo, in France’s Lyon area, or in Spain and Turkey, not to mention Scotland’s haggis, the demand for organ meats took a nose-dive in 1996 and 2000 due to health concerns triggered by mad cow disease.
Prized bone marrow, brain and thymus were pulled off the market, drawing down sales of the entire gamut of meat innards — technically any piece of beef, lamb or pork not attached to a bone, meaning flank for instance, a muscle, is categorised as ”triperie” in France.
Fall in purchasing power
But in 2002, health authorities rubber-stamped the return of foodie favourite veal thymus, or sweetbread, and veal and lamb brain also slipped back. Since, France’s National Triperie Confederation (CNTF) has battled to improve the image of innards, starting off by relabelling them ”tripe products” rather than off-putting offal.
In September and October, tripe sales rose almost 16% in volume against the same period in 2007, though meat products as a whole declined 2,6%, the CNTF said.
”We are convinced this increase is due to the credit crunch,” said the CNTF’s Jean-Jacques Arnoult. ”Every time news reports raise the issue of the fall in purchasing power, this is free advertising for us.”
Far far cheaper than a leg of lamb or T-bone steak, apart from prized veal’s liver, experts say the pace of today’s lifestyle, particularly that of working women, is responsible for pushing meat organs and ears and tails and trotters into oblivion.
More fragile than meats, innards have a shorter shelf-life and a reputation as being long and complicated — and malodorous — to cook, often requiring culinary skill to turn out an enjoyable dish.
Take iconic French recipe ”Tripes A la Mode De Caen”, a dish with a history dating back to medieval times which requires four beef stomachs as well as hooves that simmer in cider and Calvados for 10 hours in a special dish. It is said to be best in the autumn when the animals munch on apples as well as grass.
Even udders, though not as popular nowadays as during the Roman Empire, can still be found in the few specialist tripe butcheries left. Sliced, they are said to be delicious panfried with a little garlic and parsley to sharpen up the taste.
”Young people no longer know how to cook,” said butcher of 29 years Didier Chaveau at Paris’ Boucherie des Gourmands, where an assortment of large veal’s tongues was on offer, a once-a-week special.
”When we have tongue or tripe, the older people do buy them,” he said.
To swing organ meats back into favour, the CNTF is opting for a modern touch — launching a TV and internet campaign promoting easy-to-make dishes with an appetising flavour.
On its list are a warm salad of veal tongues, barbecued veal-heart kebabs, or veal liver with coffee and Marsala accompanied by mashed celery and potatoes.
If the growing appetite for once-defunct horsemeat in France is anything to go by — sales increased 3% last year — then perhaps organ meats will return. – AFP