¡¡ Menudo !!

Menudo is popular because in Mexican culture it is believed to be medicine for a hangover. Restaurants often feature it as a special on Saturday and Sunday and a few places have it every day.

I have been reluctant, hesitant, even fearful of trying it. Not sure exactly why. You would think, that as a son of East Europeans (Latvians), I would not be adverse to organ meat -- jellied pork (galerts), blood sausage, chicken livers and all that. But... cow stomach?

Yes, tripe is, if not the main ingredient, the most significant in menudo. This soup is prepared in a broth heavily spiced with red chile peppers and buffered with lots of hominy. Lots of hominy... one bowl can make one feel over-full for hours. Fresh chopped onions, cilantro, sliced radishes, and lettuce are added for topping. Tortillas on the side.

Incidentally, this is practically the same base for posole (the image you see here), which is made with pork instead of tripe.

I suppose I was afraid the tripe would be tough. I have learned, however, that menudo takes over seven hours to prepare (probably why it is made mainly for weekend consumption). I was concerned, too, about the possible addition of epazote, an herb used in much of Mexican cooking, which is said to be an "acquired taste." In large quantities epazote is also said to be poisonous!

Nevertheless, at El Mirador, our favorite restaurant in Deming, one day I raised my spoon and took the plunge.

Nothing.

The tripe was not tough; rather, it practically melted in my mouth. It was also tasteless. I tried the dish again at ¡Ándele! Restaurante in Old Mesilla (Las Cruces). I liked that better, but I think I will stick with posole.

Despite my efforts, I think, tripe will continue to have a reputation for toughness -- as it ever has. Here is an article (my ulterior motive for this blog post) that appeared in "The Silver City Enterprise," February 8, 1883 (a dispatch from "The Burlington Hawkeye"). I hope you enjoy it. It gave me a huge and hearty (organ-meaty) laugh.

What Tripe Is.

Occasionally you see a man order tripe at a hotel, but he always looks hard, as though he hated himself and everybody else. He tries to look as though he enjoys it but he does not. Tripe is indigestible, and looks like an India-rubber apron for a child to sit on. When it is pickled it looks like dirty clothes put on to soak, and when it is cooking it looks as though the cook was boiling a dish-cloth. On the table it looks like glue, and tastes like a piece of oil silk umbrella cover. A stomach that is not lined with corrugated iron would be turned inside out by the smell of tripe. A man eating tripe at a hotel table looks like an Arctic explorer dining on his boots or eating a piece of frozen raw dog. You cannot look at a man eating tripe but he will blush and look as though he wanted to apologize and convince you he was taking it to tone up his system. A woman never eats tripe. There is not enough money in the world to hire a woman to take a corner of a sheet of tripe in her teeth and try to pull off a piece. Those who eat tripe are men who have had their stomachs play mean tricks on them, and they eat tripe to get even with their stomachs, and then they go and take a Turkish bath to sweat it out of the system. Tripe is a superstition handed down form a former generation of butchers, who sold all the meat and kept the tripe for themselves and their dogs, but the dogs of the present day will not eat tripe. You throw a piece of tripe down in front of dog, and see if he does not stick his tail between his legs and go off and hate you. Tripe may have a value, but not as food. It may be good to fill into a burglar-proof safe, with the cement and chilled steel, or it might answer to use as a breast-plate in time of war, or it would be good to use as bumpers between cars, or it would make a good face for the weight of a pile-driver, but when you come to smuggle it into the stomach you do wrong. Bah! A piece of Turkish towel cooked in axle-grease would be pie compared with tripe.