I’M often accused of writing tripe, so here’s another dose. Did Huddersfield ever have a UCP restaurant?
The subject came up at the Jacob’s Well Monday Club. I faced a sea of blank faces when I posed the question.
Only mine hosts Dave and Jude knew what I was talking about, but then, they are from Lancashire.
UCP were the initials of United Cattle Products Ltd and, in the 1950s and 1960s, they had 146 shops and restaurants across the north of England.
Their speciality was tripe and cattle by-products. I never tried it although I was told it was offalgood (get it? Please yourself).
Tripe used to be sold everywhere – supermarkets, butchers and fish and chip shops.
My father ate tripe twice a week instead of meat when he turned vegetarian in his late 60s. Yes, I know what tripe is, but he didn’t. He thought it was some kind of plant life. Like seaweed.
“Don’t tell him, for God’s sake,” said my mother. “I won’t know what else to give him for tea.”
My daughter told him with great glee.
“Grandad. You know what tripe is, don’t you?”
“What, love?”
“It’s a cow’s stomach.”
He never ate it again.
Tripe has been popular forever. Achilles was a fan. Shakespeare mentioned it in The Taming of the Shrew. Samuel Pepys loved it. The Scots use it when making haggis, the French are famous for using it in gourmet dishes, the Italians serve it in a tomato sauce, the Mexicans in soup and the Belgians as a sausage.
We even have a tripe eating champion in Mick Madden from Honley who once appeared on Comic Relief and scared Spice Girl Emma Bunton with his appetites.
These days tripe is rarely seen. But 40 years ago the UCP shops in the north of England were as popular as McDonald’s burger bars are today. Different varieties of tripe, as well as oxtail and cow heel, were served at elegant marble slab tables by waitresses in black and white uniforms.
But were they only in Lancashire? Or did Huddersfield also have a tripe restaurant? And is tripe still available?
