What is Menudo?

After all these years, I finally know what menudo and tripe are. Very interesting. In Texas, tripe is often seen in grocery stores. I have a cousin who mentioned wanting to have a roadside menudo stand. I don't know why I didn't ask her what it was. Recently, on a Doctor Oz show, a doctor listed as one of food remedies for something (I think Alzheimer's Disease) chicken giblets. I know my grandmother used to put them in gravy, but I generally throw them away. Guess I won't now.

@Mor - It is strange that such faraway places would have the same thing for breakfast. I guess it just makes sense and it must be highly nutritious. Traditionally, people in Africa and Mexico probably need an energy boost at the beginning of the day before they go to work, since it is going to be very hard work.

It's actually kind of difficult to get tripe in the supermarkets here. I suspect it mostly goes into pet food, so in the long run it's probably not being wasted either way.

How cool. When I was living in Mali, West Africa I used to visit a woman every day for breakfast and she always served up a spicy soup that sounds just like this. It would have whatever meat she had managed to get the night before when the butchers were closing for the day and they were trying to get rid of the cheap stuff, so usually tripe, but also random things like brains and feet from goats, sheep and cows.

I know it sounds terrible doesn't it? In fact it was absolutely delicious. The only thing I didn't like was the brains, which I could never quite get used to. Everything else was really good and the heavy broth was delicious. I wish I knew the recipe now. I'll have to look up a recipe for menudos and see if I can replicate it that way.

@PinkLady - Your comment about we Americans not eating intestines, brains, stomach, and other strange animal parts made sense. Shouldn't we eat as much of the animal as we can? It would eliminate waste and these kinds of meat are especially nutritious.

Just as menudo was once considered a poor man's dish in Mexico, many people living in the poor countries of the world eat menudos, or organ meat. They can't afford any other parts. They eat what they have to so they can survive.

A neighbor, who grew up in Mexico, invited me down for menudo soup last week. He didn't tell me what kind of soup it was. When I walked into his house, there was a wonderful smell of spices and vegetables. Then he told me what kind of meat was in it - animal intestines, brain, stomach and tails. I turned pale!

Even though I was skeptical, I started sipping the soup and it was really good. Afterwards, he brought out some beer. "Have a few bottles - and take some soup home for breakfast - it's great for a hangover."

It's interesting how we Americans are so used to eating the traditional parts of an animal, that we are grossed out by the usually unused animal parts. It wouldn't hurt us to try some.