Flossy Phillips: The Texture of Tripe

<p><em>The Texture of Tripe</em> is a bit of a punch to the gut, in the best possible way. In this episode of <em>A Curious Appetite</em>, I’m joined by Flossy (Flora Phillips) for a gloriously gutsy conversation about offal, butchery, art, appetite and why organs can inspireequal parts fascination, pleasure and disgust. Naturally, we start on a slightly spooky foot. You’ll see what I mean. There are prophetic artworks, strange signs of things to come and a Charming Baker calf already marked out in butcher’s cuts, longbefore Flossy swapped the art world for butchery. Although perhaps the writing was already on the wall: she had been cooking and eating offal since she was eleven. From there, we get straight to the guts of it. Why do organs make some of us recoil while others positively salivate? Why can liver, heart, tripe and blood move so easily between comfort food, culinaryluxury and the downright disgusting? We talk about the curious ways we distance ourselves from the animals we eat, why a highly processed food can sometimes feel less confronting than a recognisable organ, and what our reactions to meatmight reveal about class, culture, memory, taste and the stories we tell ourselves about what is acceptable to put in our mouths.</p><p>Along the way, <em>Dark Food</em>, Mary Douglas,Sidney Mintz, Ian Miller’s <em>The Anatomy of Disgust</em> and ClaudeLévi-Strauss’s Culinary Triangle all find their way onto the butcher’s block.</p><p>The conversation continues beyond the podcasttoo. An accompanying article drawing on this interview, and going further into Flossy’s work, offal, blood, butchery and the strange cultural life of guts, is published with <a href="https://gutsmagazine.substack.com/" target="_new">GUTS magazine</a>.</p><p>We also talk about the sensory pleasures of cooking and eating offal, some of Flossy’s favourite London places to doexactly that, and possibly my favourite image from the whole conversation: Flossy heading to the cricket at The Oval with a pot of leftover tripe, because frankly, why settle for a sandwich?</p><p>We also get into blood, abattoirs, food regulation, disappearing skills and what we risk losing when small-scale systems of slaughter and production vanish.</p><p>Offal has an image problem. This episode askswhat happens when we stop looking away.</p><p><strong>Useful links</strong></p><p>• <a href="https://charmingbaker.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Charming Baker </a></p><p>• Alessandra Pino, <a href