Thoughts on Tripe

Who ever thought that eating a stomach would be "Mmm, yummy"?  Just like, who ever pulled a potato out of the ground and thought, "oh, I'll just take a bite out of this and it'll be great"?

I know that in some cultures people don't leave any waste, they eat EVERYTHING.  Literally.
However, not having been raised that every single piece of an animal is yummy eats, I have no prior experience with things like tripe.  Google it, you'll be surprised.  I thought tripe was fish when I first heard it.  Sounds like trout or pike or something...I know it's a stretch...but anyway...

I was at a birthday party.  There was lots of food.  I said, "Oooh, what's that?"  she (doesn't matter who) said, "I think that is pork in a peanut sauce"  I happen to love peanut sauce, and pork.  So, I put a spoon of it on my plate.  I went on to also put generals chicken and meatballs on my plate as well.  When I turned around about 7 people jumped at me and attacked my plate and told me how "you don't want THAT!"  I will never be able to tell you what they said it was actually called in their language (which I think may have been philippino, but I didn't ask) but every single one of them said that they don't eat it.  Well, if you don't eat it then what is it doing at your kid's 6th birthday party!?

I had already put a piece of tripe in my mouth when the whole jumping me thing happened.  It was lucky too.  The tripe is really...um...chewy...   kind of...rubbery, with not much flavor of its own.  It really made me want to spit it out, but I was trying to be dignified about the whole thing.  Finally, someone recognized that I already had a piece of it in my mouth and he gave me a napkin.  I promptly spit it out as discreetly as possible into my napkin and threw it away, I did NOT want to carry ABC'd tripe around.  It was bad enough that it was on my plate still...

So, of all the people telling me not to eat it, no one actually knew what it was.  I got out my handy iphone (no I'm not a representative of Apple) and googled it (no, I'm not a representative of google either...)

Tripe is defined as follows:
-noun

1.

the first and second divisions of the stomach of a ruminant,especially oxen, sheep, or goats, used as food.

Again, I ask you...who first thought that tripe would be yummy to eat?