It was a case of mistaken identity. He was not who he said he was. Or, maybe I just heard his name wrong.  “Vorrei la trippa,” I declared in broken Italian, sitting on my hands to prevent myself from making a Godfather-esque hand kiss and consequently embarrass my Calabrian ancestors.  The last of the antipasti misti carnage was being cleared from our table in the center of the wood-paneled room at Ristorante Tre Galline in Torino, Italy. It was time for the main event of the classic Piemontese feast and I couldn’t wait for that fine piece of fish.  As the waiter walked toward the table with a steaming bowl neatly balanced on his forearm, Handel's “Hallelujah Chorus" unwittingly started blasting in my head. Dinner was about to get served - and so was I. When that bowl was placed before me, what greeted me wasn't exactly the filet-o-fish I had envisioned. It was a steaming bowl of stew - stomach stew, to be exact. No fins about it. If it looks like stomach and tastes like stomach, chances are ... it’s stomach.  The internal crescendo of “Hallelujah” record screeched into Darth Vader's “Imperial March.”  Somehow in my mind, I calculated the formula that trout + pike = tripe. You know - that white flaky fish line-caught off the coast of Kalamazoo? I’m a word person. Math was and never will be my strong point. I was lost in translation.  As my face wrenched into an expression akin to that of a bachelor who's just guzzled spoiled milk straight from the carton, my dinner companion confessed, “I thought you were just being adventurous. You were so sure of yourself when you ordered.”  I didn’t want to be the American tourist who couldn’t stomach offal, so I did what I had to do – bravely forged on. I can smear liver and mash marrow into my face as eagerly as the next carnivore. Texturally though, it was just so … stomach-y. I can't even go far as to say the dish was bad, but darn it, I just wanted some fish.  It’s that same sensation as grabbing a water bottle and taking a swig, only to find out it’s vodka. What just happened isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you simply weren’t expecting it and you’re thrown off. Those snozzberries certainly don’t taste like snozzberries.  My otherwise abounding appetite was put on lay away for the rest of the night - no tiramisu for me. I haven’t gone fishing for tripe since.  Ever had an ordering mishap? Do you politely muscle your way through, or send it back for a replacement?
Ever think you're ordering one thing and a wholly other dish arrives? Can't always make lemonade with that.