The French Touch: Innards & Extremities

French cooks are famous for never letting food go to waste, and that includes all sorts of innards and extremities. It may take an enthusiast’s eye to light up at the sight of kidneys, heart, feet, and tails on the butcher’s slab, but some of the most famous and sought-after traditional dishes are made from just such curiosities. For instance, tripes à la mode de Caen, a Norman dish from the abbey town of Caen, is a slithery mix of four different kinds of lining from a cow’s stomach, together with calf’s feet, all of them braced with cider and high-octane Calvados.