How Can This Be Good?

Tripe is one of the few foods of childhood I will not eat today. Ditto okra. I'm fine with beef tongue and calf liver now. But tripe doesn't cut it, and that's across all ethnic cuisines.

Why? It's bland, white, beautiful to look at. Looks like bee honeycomb. It has no strong smell or flavor. It's basically harmless. On par with tofu: a cheap protein cooked and eaten by many cultures world 'round. Peons and prosperous folks all partake of it. So, what's to dislike?

Food isn't just food. It's emotional. It's the baggage of childhood, familial relationships and teenage self-assertion. Tripe with tomatoes and garbanzo beans is my grandmother on a tirade about "During the war..." Tripe is about enforced gratitude. It's what follows after saying grace at the table. It's the swallow and gag of eating what you don't like. And it's the dread of another meal with another appearance of that thing that gets tougher and tougher every time you reheat it.

Tripe to me is about control.

Today I'm old enough to not have to eat it or buy it. I can laugh at it on a menu in Italy and Mexico. I can take an artful photo of it in a butcher's shop. I can appreciate the rest of the world that wants to eat it.

To all of you, be my guests.

I'll feast my eyes. And that's all.