When I was growing up we had a rule in our house which explains quite a lot: we couldn't say we didn't like something unless we'd tried it at least once. While this was generally a rallying cry for life – my mother would probably have agreed with Sir Thomas Beecham that everything was worth a go, bar Morris dancing and incest – in childhood it mostly pertained to the dinner table. And so I was the one who would taunt his primary school friends with stories of slurping raw oysters, while they recoiled.
I still try to keep to this rule. For example I once ate salt-fermented sea cucumber in a very serious Tokyo restaurant. It tasted as you might imagine licking the slime off a fish that has been left to fester in a warm room for three days might taste; it had the tang of bilge and entrail. I decided I had ticked it off the list; I didn't ever have to do that again. Indeed, immediately afterwards, given the choice, I'd have strapped on the ankle bells and joined in with the Morris dancers rather than repeat the fermented sea-cucumber thing.
However, a new survey has made me question my behaviour. According to the website Ask Jeeves, nearly 30% of people in Britain have tried tripe once and will never do so again. As a man who cares far too much about his lunch this strikes me as a Very Real Tragedy. I know I'm meant to applaud the 30% and respect their decision, while rolling my eyes at the others. But I don't respect the ones who gave it a go. I simply don't think they were trying hard enough.
Tripe is lovely. Admittedly, you have to have it cooked by someone who knows what they're doing; someone like the great cookery writer Simon Hopkinson who once brought me a Tupperware box of his tripe stew as a thank you for being taken on a review. It had a deep, dark sticky quality as of the very best dishes made from the forgotten bits of animals. Yes, there was a hint of the farmyard and there was an echo of death. But that's a good thing; some of the greatest of foods are like that.
The refuseniks need to try tripe again. And again. And again. Until they finally get the point of it. For once can never be enough. I'm not going to be dictatorial about this. There has to be a cut-off point. But I do think at least half a dozen attempts are in order, which is what I chalked up with the bitter thump of the campari, gin and vermouth-based negroni. And even then I admitted my dislike for negronis was a personal failing.
It's the same with tripe. You can say you don't like it, but you really have to have made the effort. Twenty-five per cent of respondents said they had tried both Marmite and whisky once and would never again let it past their lips; 16% had made the solitary effort with octopus. Really! Octopus! I despair.
Sometimes it's simply about leaving a healthy gap between attempts. As we age our tastes change. Long into my 20s I hated salted anchovies and goat's cheese. I came back to them again and again. Now I love them. Because that's the only proper way to attack the global larder: with conviction. Of course, I do recognise what this means. I understand what I have to do, and it doesn't involve Morris dancers. Anybody got some salt-fermented sea cucumber?
