Trotters and tripe
How Victorian gutter merchants made a killing selling street food to drunks on their way home from the pub
It was said you could buy anything your heart desired on the streets of Victorian Manchester.
Gutter merchants sold their wares in the ginnels — fruit, flowers, toys, ginger beer, icecream, art, literature, toothpicks, bird whistles and combs.
And on the food stalls around Shudehill you would also find trotters and tripe being sold to drunks on their way home from the pub.
The trotters being sold were the sheep and pig feet. Tripe is the lining of the stomachs of sheep, cattle and pigs.
Walter Tomlinson, who wrote the Gossiping Guide to Manchester and Salford, described a “cheery old lady” who set up her stall selling cold trotters in the gutter each evening “with the punctuality of the town hall clock”.
“We didn’t see many of them sold, yet there is a good fresh supply of them every night,” Tomlinson said.
“We fancy they must be bought by meek-eyed young gentlemen who take them home in their coat-tail pockets.”
Once at home, the trotter eaters of Manchester boiled their sheep’s foot in a pan for their supper.
Tomlinson also knew a trotter merchant who was a “marvel of profanity and general wickedness,” but knew how to keep his customers happy.
“Yes, mum. Thank you, mum,” he would tell them. “Here’s yer trotter — and how’s yer sowl?”
Other gutter vendors sold black puddings — sausages made with cow or pig blood cooked with fat and barley.
Tomlinson recorded there must have been a “considerable number of people who mainly live on them” as the stalls could be found all over town.
He got talking to a gutter vendor who had a “bright and cheerful aspect” and was “clean, well dressed, even to the all-round collar”, whose stock of black puddings appeared quite small.
But the man reported that the trade he was doing was “something astonishing”.
“Should you like to try one?” the man asked.
“We cheerfully assented and one was fished up for us from the great boiling saucepan fixed on the portable fire grate by his side,” Tomlinson reported.
“It was good, about as good as we thought black puddings could be.”
But the man then pulled out some smaller black puddings from a hidden corner - a secret stash for special customers.
“The others are good,” he said, “but not as good as these.”
The man said those special puddings contained eight herbs and were sold by him in certain butcher’s shops in town.
Tomlinson was amazed when the gutter merchant then told him he was selling over 1,000 of his puddings each week.
“Our friend was evidently a true artist,” Tomlinson said, “and an enthusiast in the pudding line.”
In another street he found an Irish woman selling hot potatoes with a pinch of salt to some ragged children keeping next to the fire she tended in a metal box.
He bought a supply of spuds for them all before turning around a corner, where a man was pulling a barrow full of mushrooms.
“Here’s yer musherooms, ladies,” he kept repeating. “Only five pence a pound.”
Tomlinson began to dream of his favourite dish — a leg of mutton with roasted, buttered and peppered mushrooms.
But, after thinking about that dish served up out of the oven, he said had no thought of returning to the food merchants of the gutter.
Walking tours and more
I hope you enjoyed this week’s story from the streets of Victorian Manchester.
Thank you for supporting this newsletter by continuing to read it.
If you’re a regular reader, I’m sorry I’ve been a little quiet in posting it lately.
I’ve been working on a project and planning a new tour somewhere in the city which I’ll be able to announce soon.
This week I’ve also working with the brilliant Hamilton Davies Trust in Cadishead by running a genealogy course for people from the local community.
I started off by inviting everyone to write down what they wanted to find out from the course on some green luggage tags that we then hung onto one of those desk-top birch trees you can buy for your home.
It’s a nice way to think about why doing your family history is a good thing.
We’re going to have a look at them again when the course finishes in six weeks’ time to see what we’ve learned.
I’ve also just announced the spring dates for my Angel Meadow walking tour, which I’m bringing back in March for a third season.
Please do come along if you think it’s something you’d like to do. Tickets are already selling well so it’s best not to leave it too late to book.
I’ve recently been given an “excellent” badge by ticketing site Viator for good customer service and I’m hoping more people will come along this year with the aim of pushing towards a TripAdvisor Traveller’s Choice Award.
Tickets are available now by clicking here or using the button below.
Thanks again for reading this newsletter and helping me continue to write it. Please do subscribe and share to help more people read it.
And have a great weekend if you’re having sheep trotters for dinner!
Enjoyed the story about the street vendors. As a foreigner I could not fully understand all of it. Can you please give me a translation of the terms. Trotter, I assume is "leg of lamb", is that correct? What is black pudding? A short recipe would be appreciated, although I doubt that I will be preparing it.
Loved this Dean