Canned tripe, and not just any canned tripe ... Butcher’s Tripe Mix, Limited Edition, Original Grain Free Recipe, Fit As a Butcher’s Dog. The only thing more surprising was the claim that the item was “celebrating” its 30th year on the Welsh market.

Those cans may well have sat there for almost 30 years.

We are surprised that this food is not – as far as we know – stocked in Bendigo.

Tripe! The lining of a cow’s stomach. The last time DTM had eaten it was about 40 years ago in Spain when we thought we were ordering cubed chicken in tomato sauce. It was tripe in paprika sauce.

It is still gag-worthy.

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We were supposed to celebrate official United Nations Pasta Day this week. 

The UN declared this on October 25, 1995 after the World Pasta Congress in Rome and, in its official declaration, said: “The objective of World Pasta Day is to draw the attention of the media and consumers to pasta. Communication should underline the fact that pasta is a global food, consumed in all five continents, having unquestionable merits, appropriate for a dynamic and healthy life style capable of meeting both primary food requirements and those of high-level gastronomy.”

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We believed pasta was brought to Italy from China by Marco Polo in the 13th century, but that’s a myth.

Other evidence tracks it back to the 1st century CE when Quintus Horatius Flaccus (better known as Horace) wrote about a common dish of fried sheets of dough which had layers of meat and other foods between them. He called it lagana.

It wasn’t until the 14th and 15th centuries that it made its way around the known world, because it was durable and easily stored on ships.

It doesn’t seem to have lobbed in Australia until 1952 when the Women’s Weekly printed a recipe for “Spaghetti Bolognese” which used Worcestershire sauce and was baked.