Trippa alla Romana

The dish is a survival of Rome's quinto quarto (literally «fifth quarter») tradition, the offal and trimmings of slaughtered animals that the nobility, clergy and merchants left to the common people and the butchers; this working-class cooking took its modern shape around the slaughterhouse district of Testaccio in the 18th and 19th centuries. Tripe was historically eaten on Saturday — the «sabato trippa» custom, by which Saturday lunch in Rome meant tripe, a usage now fading but still seen hand-written on old trattoria signs. The dish has no single recorded inventor; what distinguishes the Roman version from tripe cooked elsewhere in Italy is its specific seasoning with mentuccia and Pecorino Romano.

Strips of honeycomb tripe, gently chewy with a clean give rather than rubbery, in a deep red tomato sauce thickened by long stewing. The pancetta gives a cured-pork savour underneath; the mentuccia, added late, runs through it as a cool, faintly oregano-like mint that keeps the rich offal from feeling heavy. A snowfall of sharp, salty Pecorino Romano over the hot bowl is the signature last note. Done right the tripe is tender and odour-free; underwashed or undercooked, it turns tough and smells barnyardy.

Tripe is mostly collagen-rich muscle from the stomach wall, so it needs thorough cleaning and a long, slow braise — usually pre-boiled, then stewed an hour or more — to soften the connective tissue to gelatin and lose its raw smell; rushing the heat leaves it rubbery. The mint is stirred in only in the last few minutes: its volatile aromatic oils are driven off by prolonged heat, so a late addition keeps the fresh, cooling note intact, the same logic by which gremolata is added raw to osso buco. The Pecorino Romano is grated on off the heat, where its salt and sharp, sheep's-milk tang season the dish without the cheese turning oily and stringy.