Trippa, Napoli
An AI overview or chatgpt will probably help you cheat on an exam or blag your way through a dinner party or date; it will get you nowhere with food. Before I went to Naples I read trusted sources (Katie Parla, Fare Magazine, Culinary Backstreets) and made a list with the recommendations and tips from friends who come from there, have been before or who live there. Gasparino https://gasparino.eu/ who have great social media skills was pulling me closest but o’russ https://www.instagram.com/tripperia_o_russ1945/ was five minutes from the flat we rented and had from what I could only discern from photos a more old school approach and deeper history. Its not often I’m torn between new and old and when I am I try the old one first and if it doesn’t live up to it I’ll give the other a go to compare. O ‘Russ went beyond what I had imagined - this was first experience with Neapolitan tripe- for years I’d saved places on my maps and had looked at others photos trying to imagine how the food would be at these stalls, which look like butchers. The different stomachs hanging from hooks with water cascading down next to bunches of celery and lemons. The boiled innards displayed next to a chopping board. I’d had ‘u mussu in Palermo, a street food of boiled veal offal (parts of the head and the feet) sitting on ice that’s sliced at the moment and served with lemon. How would this be different? I was curious about the origin of the cold tripe street food.
The royals and the rich used to call the poor in Napoli the Zendraglie, the entrail eaters. Those that salvaged any leftovers from the slaughter would use find ways to turn trash into treasure or what looks like hell into heaven. A story goes that Vincenzo Corrado ,the cook in the royal palace of Naples and who in his book Il Cuoco Galante, wrote the first recipe for tripe in Italy put it on the menu for the rich because King Ferdinand used to enjoy it as an anonymous customer. Fakelore or folklore?
The poor now, what do they cook, if they do? They’re not turning scraps into recipes that’ll outlast themselves. Things were different hundreds of years ago - there was no supermarkets offering cheap chickens, no fast food chains so popular that they could feed a family in five minutes for what they make them believe is cheaper than buying ingredients and cooking. The poor now eat poorly because they don’t want to cook. The poor want to behave rich - to not have time to cook. Their kids want to be like the other kids and drink soda and eat out every day because it looks better (richer) if you eat out instead of eating at home at a table a plate of beans with some pieces of meat or fish. We run the risk of losing recipes if we don’t cook or eat what the generations before us did. They have choices now and back in the old days (not that long ago) there wasn’t a choice- you ate what you were given and were happy when and if you had anything. This is a part of why there are many eaters who say they don’t like something before trying it - tripe doesn’t resemble a chicken leg, tongues look like tongues and not processed meat, hearts and heads aren’t familiar pizza toppings.
From the airport we took a illegal cab that charged 5€ for a seat, the same price as the airport bus but quicker, it dropped us behind Napoli Centrale and we walked towards our apartment in Rione Sanita. Within half an hour we were sitting at o ‘russ with beers. Years of staring longingly at pictures on my phone had built this moment to be epic, another line through the bucket list. We translated the history of the place from the paper table placemats. With precision and care the waiter chop the offal into thin slices- the blanket and book tripe, tongue, head, feet, udder and uterus. He seasoned with fresh lemon and salt, plated the meat and added cubes of carrot, celery and lettuce dressed with olive oil and big green olives. It was beautiful and delicious. The simplicity of the seasoning let each piece of offal be itself. Chefs in fancy restaurants talk about texture. This is a plate of textures. This is meat salad.
I didn’t try Gasparino or Le Zendraglie or Fiorenzano as it wasn’t a long trip, it was a stop off on the way to Sicily. I want to go back to try and see what the difference is, if there is. This, o per’ e ‘o muss is only one of offal dishes of Napoli- there’s zuppa forte (lung, heart and liver stew), soffritto and various ways with tripe: fried, in broth, with beans but this was the one that I had seen and wondered about for years. The street food of Italy is worth searching out, you can follow your nose or your senses, which I have and been treated to memorable meals that almost seem unreal as when you go back the next time it may not be there like the funfair in BIG , maybe they moved to another location or they’ve gone on holiday or out of business but there’s always something else close.
