The Tripe and Elder Gods

My brother, moved by my post on brains, insists on telling me in comments about the Tripe Marketing Board.

I'm a little suspicious as to whether the Tripe Marketing Board is what it says on the tin, but as a tripe eater, I have to say the website is persuasive.

(Edit: Video replaced with 2015 version, 11/23/21)

(Edit: Video replaced with similar tripe-related video which 

unfortunately concerns Lancashire 10/25/24)

The site includes the following testimonials to the enduring beauty of tripe.

"Growing up near Bradford, we used to get it served cold with lots of malt vinegar and salt and pepper, usually on a Friday for some reason. We had white tripe and brown tripe (called elder) served together. The horror of it still lingers." 

"It's absolutely disgusting. I'll eat pretty much anything else from an animal but not tripe."
"The texture, the ghastly alien patterning of the dead flesh with its smooth slimy reverse side, is profoundly repulsive." 

"Though vegetarian now (for reasons of principle rather than taste), I was a meat-eater and far from fussy as a child, and cheerfully ate and enjoyed black pudding, liver, kidneys, tongue, haggis and even stuffed and roasted ox hearts. But I ate tripe on only one occasion, when given it by an uncle who regarded it as a delicacy, and of whom I was completely terrified - so much so that I couldn't do otherwise than finish every mouthful. I can't remember exactly what it tasted like, only that it was the foulest thing I have ever eaten. I have absolutely no intention of repeating the experience."

My mother (who is also Bruv's mother, that's the way it goes) bought tripe from the marketplace every couple of months. The honeycomb tripe (served with vinegar) was so clearly NOT FOOD that I had no trouble refusing it under any circumstances but there was a brown tripe called elder that was soft and tasted like a fatty meat. That I was able to swallow. As far as anyone knows, elder appears to be cow's udder. Somebody has to eat it, I suppose.

 When I had my first ever job - which was at Fox's Biscuits in Batley - at break time, the firm's cafeteria served bread and dripping. I feel like such a Real Yorkshireman even though I've lived away from there for most of my life. One serving of elder and one serving of bread and dripping is enough to make anyone a 'onarrery Yorkshireman and I had that in spades.