Menudo (soup)

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The soup menudo is a traditional Mexican dish; a spicy soup made with tripe. It is often thought of as a cure for a hangover, and is traditionally served on special occasions or with family.

Menudo is an ethnic dish that has its roots firmly planted in peasant food heritage and poverty. In pre-revolution Mexico, poverty amongst the campesinos was chronic and little if anything that might be prepared as food was left to waste. Usually, the best cuts of meat would go to the hacienda owners while the offal went to the peons. These leftovers consisted of organ meats, brains, head, tails, hooves, etc. Inventive peasant cooks created a soup that made good use of one of the major leftovers: -- the stomach. As cattle and sheep are ruminants that require lengthy intestinal tracts to digest their diet of grasses and raw seeds, the stomach is one of the largest pieces of offal available from these animals.

Classic menudo is basically a slowly cooked stew of tripe infused with several varieties of chile peppers and spices. It is presented as a soup and typically is served with corn tortillas or white bread rolls (bolillos), and almost always includes grains of corn. There are a number of variations on menudo, including blanco (white or clear), verde (green), or rojo (red). Typical condiments added to menudo are dried oregano, ground chile flakes, lime juice, and chopped onion . Due to the length of time needed to cook tripe to be tender enough to be edible, menudo is generally cooked in large batches and sold as a special menu item in Mexican restaurants, although it is occasionally prepared at home. In some areas menudo is sold as a weekend-only specialty in regular restaurants (typically announced by signs reading Menudo fin de semana), in other areas, menudo is made daily, but mostly sold in restaurants and market stalls (fondas) that specialize in the dish.

There are a number of regional variations on menudo. In northern Mexico, typically hominy (creation of hominy is one step in the production of tortilla dough) is added, and in northwest states such as Sinaloa and Sonora usually only the blanco, or white, variation is seen. Adding patas (beef or pigs feet) to the stew is popular but not universal. In some areas of central Mexico, "menudo" refers to stew of sheep stomach, "pancitas" stew of beef stomach. The red variation is usually seen in Chihuahua, the northern state adjoining Texas. A similar stew made with more easily cooked meat is pozole.

The popularity of menudo in Mexico is such that Mexico is a major export market for stomach tripe from US and Canadian beef producers. Large frozen blocks of imported menudo meat can frequently be seen in Mexican meat markets.

The word "menudo" in Mexico can mean the raw stomach meat as well as the stew. The word tripas normally refers to the small intestines rather than the stomach. Tripas are also eaten, but normally in tacos rather than stews.

For some reason menudo stew in the vicinity of Cancun seems to be more commonly known as mandongo (the colombian version of menudo), which does not include the tradtional grains of corn.

In the last season of the 1970s television series Sanford and Son, Fred Sanford made a reference to menudo in almost every episode. It was thought to be his favorite dish.

Menudo also refers to an entirely different dish made in the Philippines. This dish, in contrast, is made of garlic, onions, diced pork chops, pork liver, diced potato, green bell peppers, soy sauce and tomato sauce, and seasoned with salt and pepper while it is cooked.

Menudo is eaten for breakfast and is known as the "Breakfast of Champions" in New Mexico and Texas.[1]

[edit] See also

• Wikibooks:Cookbook:Menudo
• One man's experience: [2]

Menudo also means, "small change". It is unknown if the soup came to be known as "small change" since it was left over or if the "small change" left on the table for the server was like the soup.