I like cooking shows. I like Gordon Ramsay and I definitely like food (we need it to survive apparently.) But tripe? Hold on a minute. I’m trying to cut down on my consumption of farm animal stomachs, thank you very much. It seems however that my food fussiness is not shared by many of the great British public, with sales of tripe having risen by more than 400% in the past 10 days. And all because Gordon Ramsay said he liked it.

The mouthy chef whipped up some tripe delicacy (oxymoron much?) on his Channel 4 show The F Word last Tuesday and now shoppers are demanding their supermarkets stock the stuff. In Tesco, tripe had only been available in dog food form (sounds about right), but fans are quick to defend the nutritional values of it. David Gray from catering offal supplier Oakwood Foods is lapping up all this tripe mania: “Tripe is exceedingly tasty as well as being wholesome and filling. The only downside is that, a bit like kippers, it is rather smelly and after being cooked, can stink the whole house out. Aside from this, tripe contains virtually no fat and is very nutritious so I’m not surprised that, with Gordon’s backing, there has been such a huge upsurge in sales.”

He went on to brown-nose the chef behind the renaissance: “Gordon Ramsay is a very skilful chef and markets himself extremely well. Because of this, anything he touches suddenly becomes trendy and in vogue. That he is helping to reinvent certain foodstuffs – like tripe which was once seen as good, honest poor man’s grub of yesteryear – is excellent and very commendable.”

Yes, it might be healthy. Yes, I’m sure those who remember it the first time round might get a kick out of re-living those halcyon days of rationing and deprivation by giving their false teeth a work-out on it. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to respectfully decline. How long until we can expect the press backlash against TV chefs influencing our eating habits and shopping choices? Just a bit of food for thought (boom, boom!)