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View the Video Taste Test on the Yorkshire Evening Post web site
For many diners in the UK, offal is quite simply... awful.
But in Italy, people feast on tripe sandwiches everyday – and for chefs like Gip Dammone, who co-owns Salvo's Restaurant in Headingley, pigs hearts and calf livers are a much-loved delicacy.
So much so, the chef is staging a unique event at the restaurant, featuring an eight-course menu of entirely offal-based dishes. On October 14, Il Quinto Quarto, will serve up stuffed pigs trotters, pigs head and calf sweetbreads, complete with sanguinaccio for dessert – otherwise known as pigs blood with chocolate spread. Gip, who runs the Headingley restaurant with his brother John, said: "The pigs blood has to be warm and fresh.
"I remember the days when I lived with my father in Sicily and we used to give our cousins gifts of 50 lire. They would rush out to the shops and buy a loaf of bread and some sanguinaccio, to make a sanguinaccio sandwich. "In Italy, you can go to a street vender and buy a spleen sarnie. Fast food in Florence is a tripe sandwich. But in England, it's different.
"Changing people's perceptions is a long, drawn-out thing. I get jokes like, "I'm going to call the RSPCA on you". "I say actually, I should be calling the RSPCA on you, when you elect to just eat the loin.
At least we eat everything." Il Quinto Quarto, which translates to "the fifth quarter", takes its name from the modern slaughterhouse in the Testaccio suburb of Rome, which opened at the end of the 19th century.
The cows were cut into four quarters, while the remaining pieces, including the skin, head, tail and liver, were known as the fifth quarter. Considered meat of poor quality, Il Quinto Quarto was given to the butchers to round up their meagre pay – and according to legend, many then sold it to local restaurants. Gip added: "It's common knowledge amongst gourmets that the internal organs are some of the most beautiful dishes you can have.
Il Quinto Quarto costs £35 per head.
* For more information or to book, call John on (0113) 2755017 or visit www.salvos.co.uk
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