Menudo (food)

The menudo, also known as pancita, callos or tripe, is a dish that is prepared in various places in America, the Philippines and Spain, and is identified with different names (such as callos, guatitas, mondongo) depending on the country and where there may be additions of different ingredients, preserving the beef stomachs as principal ingredient.

In many parts of the world, Menudo is traditionally thought to be used as a remedy for hangovers, although in Mexico it is also traditionally consumed as a dish served on special occasions or with the family, especially in the mornings as breakfast.. It is usually accompanied with a spicy red sauce, oregano and freshly made tortillas, as well as a soft drink, orange juice or very cold beer.

History

The origin of the Menudo is a debated topic, however the first mentions come from before the conquest, in Spain, a Castilian recipe book of tripe, as pieces of stomach, already mentions it at the end of the century XVI, in the Libro del Arte de Cozina, Diego Granado. Before, in 1423, in El Arte Cisoria , Enrique de Villena, alludes to them disparagingly when he says:

Some eat the tongue and figado e tripas e liuianos, e non are, in taste or health, such that they give among people of good and delicate

Therefore, it is presumed that the consumption of offal has always existed among the popular social classes.

The version that defends the northern origin argues that select cuts of meat from livestock in the towns were sent to the battlefields to feed the hungry soldiers, while the leftovers were left for the peasants. These leftovers consisted of the internal organs, tails, tongue, etc. This would most likely place its origin in the 19th century and early XX.

On the other hand, the central version does not say that the origin of the dish would be located mainly in the Michoacán, Jalisco and Guanajuato region (formerly dominated by the Purépecha) where there is even a nice viceregal legend about the origin of this dish. He says that the city butcher, a type of Spanish origin, refused to sell meat to the Indians, only making the leftovers available to them, among which were the giblets and legs, whenever a Indigenous people who wanted to buy meat would price it at an exorbitantly high price or simply deny them the merchandise, arguing that the meat was not food for Indians but for whites. As time went by, the Indians stopped asking for meat and bought more and more belly and legs, until one day the servant of a white house asked for what before only the Indians bought, belly and legs, the seller, surprised. He asked why he wanted them and they answered: to prepare Menudo, of course. The dish became increasingly popular until the butcher was forced to raise the price of the belly and legs, and Since then it has become a dish for special occasions. Even so, the popularity of the recipe soon spread throughout the kingdom.

The recipe for this Menudo is very simple: it is only prepared with garlic, onion, chili, oregano and avocado leaves (very abundant in this region).

Over time, the original recipe acquired modifications according to the regions that enhanced its flavor, particularly by adding spices, and in other cases hominy corn, Menudo Rojo is one of the typical dishes of the city of Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco. as well as in the northern States of Chihuahua and Durango it is accompanied with bread, while the white Menudo is typical of the States of Sonora and Sinaloa, which is accompanied with chiltepín. The white pozole is usually consumed by women and the red one by men.

It is served as a soup and is accompanied with bread and corn tortillas or toast. When serving, lemon, raw onion, cilantro, mint or oregano are usually added to taste.

Mondongo Kabic

The gastronomy of Yucatán has its own version of this dish, called "mondongo kabic" which has a marked Mayan influence. Annatto and sour orange are added to this version, which gives it a notably particular and different flavor from the tripe from the rest of Mexico.