European Gourmet and Tripe Soup

Now that our stomachs have finally digested the last bits of food from the holiday festivities, we can all start to get back into a normal routine. With the new year, maybe you've made a resolution to eat better, try new foods, or adopt a foreign eating style, with bigger lunches and smaller dinners.

European Gourmet is a small Polish deli, with a wide selection of cured meats such as juniper sausage, head cheese, and black sausage. There is also a niceselection of canned and dried goods including sauerkraut soup, chestnut puree, plum butter, rosehip butter, and many herbal teas. Christine and I picked out a few delicious sausages along with a jar of Lingonberries. Lingonberries have a usage somewhat like cranberries. They can be a side to meat dishes, or on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or even an ingredient in a rub or glaze. The flavor isn't as bitter as a cranberry, and has a darker profile, somewhat like a blackberry.

Lingonberry jam

A "Cracow" sausage

    

A juniper sausage

There is a small frozen section where they have some savory & sweet pierogi's. Looking further in the case, my eye was immediately drawn to the tripe soup. I'm aware that what I eat is not necessarily everyone's cup of tea. I can accept people's reluctance to follow me in my search to eat tongue, eyes, testicles and other oddities, but I feel tripe should be approachable and common in today's household.

Offals, the odd cuts, including the highly perishable intestines, have been slowly coming back into favor with the public. People are not only becoming more adventurous, but with the economic strain, they want something cheap. Restaurants are also starting to look towards offals to replace New York strips, or tenderloins, which make almost no money and can lack flavor. Tripe has a bad reputation from the 1930s and '40. During the depression, it got families by, but it wasn't the best tasting. Not only was the texture odd, but improper cleaning and cooking left many people seeing it as sub-par. Once the war hit and the economy started growing, people were finally able to afford the more expensive cuts and stuck with them. Now many people are too stubborn, or grossed out to try it. With the advancement of kitchen techniques, and technology, we know how to better clean and cook tripe, and with the internet, it isn't hardly out of anyone's reach.

Tripe Soup. Great on a cold winter day. 

This tripe soup was delicious. It included small strips of tripe, along with some standard veg, including carrots, celery, and herbs. When I first tasted it, I was filled with warmth and excitement. In trying to describe it, I related  it to a chicken soup. The broth was darker and richer than a typical chicken soup, but there was no chicken. The meat was the small tripe strips that tasted like thick cut noddles. They had substance behind them, and I looked forward to getting more strips in the next spoonful