An aside: foods which I do not like. (There are few.)

I will eat anything that is put in front of me. However, there are three examples that make me feel a little bit uncomfortable. I mean, I have plenty of friends who won't eat meat unless it contains no skin or bone, those who will not eat fish because of the texture or any seafood because it just looks, well, too creaturely, I suppose. Then there are those who won't touch food they think will be (chilli) hot, who dislike leaf coriander with a passion, offal haters and those who reject cumin, tumeric in curries, Thai or South East Asian food because of the hit of fish sauce (which I love). Folks have all sorts of predilections. My husband will not be persuaded to eat beetroot in any form or peppers, unless ravenous. So back to me.
1. Heart. I am an offal fancier, but just cannot eat this. My mother would serve it up about once a month throughout my childhood. To me, it has a rich, slightly sweet, metallic and somehow bloody smell that repels.
 Do you have any suggestions? The best way I ever found was to stuff it with herby breadcrumbs, but even then...
2. Lychees. My family is well aware that I regard these as the fruit of the devil. I dislike the texture, the cloying smell and the slight squeak they make. I don't even like the name of the thing, stopping, as it does, somewhere between lice and leeches. They have been served up time and time agai in fruit salads to me, particularly because of the South Asian influence on my family, where I have been served them as a fruit salad after a range of curry dishes. But, well, yuk. They look like congealed vitreous humour in syrup.
3. Tripe. O.k. Big sheets of it. Billowing around in white sauce with onions and served with boiled potatoes. It was a favourite of my father and was cooked at home because it was a dish which his mother, Beth, regularly cooked for him. So, again, this probably appeared at least once a month when I was growing up. I would eat the onions in the white sauce and lots of boiled potatoes and then attempt to eradicate at least some of the tripeyness (this is an invented adjective, of course) by the application of malt vinegar and lots of pepper. Which went some way to improve things. The texture. Well, I don't mind excercising my jaws. Neither am I remotely squeamish about the fact that it is the lining of a stomach. And yet, it does look as if you'd unrolled a wad of bubble wrap and pressed it down and then boiled it and I profundly dislike the way it manages to smell a little like a damp sock when cooking. A smell which pervades each room of the house.

BUT there is a caveat to this one. It came the first summer I discovered Elizabeth David's books and thus, when I went to France, tried to eat some of the things she so beautifully described in French Provincial Cooking. May I tell you about the dish called Tableau au Pompier -- or fireman's apron? You take a piece of cooked tripe about the size of your hand (you would have poached this in a little seasoned water) then you cover it with melted butter, roll it in seasoned breadcrumbs and put it under a very hot grill, turning once, so that the outside is very crisp and blisteringly hot. Eat immediately. If I had to, this is, I think, the way to go. For me, this little curiosity makes the best of a crisp exterior and the soft chewy texture of the tripe within.

OOOH: I think there may be hope here. Since thinking about this little article, I have been looking, in particular, at the use of thinly shredded tripe in the wonderfully aromatic Vietnamese soup, Pho. Now there's one to sample. I'm wondering whether, for me, the meat will lend itself so much more to Chinese and South East Asian food. Will experiment.

The picture above is by James Cridland and shows a shop in Smithfield market: note the Tripe Dressers in the title. www.flickr.com Thank you James.