Beef tripe and ox foot cooked for many hours in cider and Calvados with onions, carrots and leeks, in a sealed earthenware pot.
What makes it tripes à la mode de caen
Several parts of the beef stomach, with ox foot.
Cider and Calvados, onions, carrots and leeks.
A sealed pot and a very long, low bake.
Where it comes from
Caen claims it, and a brotherhood there, the Confrérie de la Tripière d'Or, judges the best each year. The dish is often credited to a medieval cook of the abbey at Caen, but that's a story rather than a record.
The traditional pot is a tripière, a squat earthenware dish sealed with a flour-and-water paste and left in a low oven for ten hours or more. The ox foot gives gelatine, and the sauce sets when it cools.