Soap Creek Valley · Monograph #5 · 41 of 46

22. Swiss Tripe Recipe

22. Swiss Tripe Recipe of John Jacob & Wilma Rohner — printed pp. 94–95 — recorded September 30, 1990 at Jake Rohner's home, Benton County, Oregon (afternoon). Every printed page has its own permanent link.

Zybach, Bob 1993. John Jacob and Wilma Rohner. Family Farming on Coffin Butte Between World Wars, Benton County, Oregon: 1919-1941. Soap Creek Valley History Project, Monograph #05. Oregon State University Research Forests and College of Forestry, Corvallis, Oregon: 132 pp.

p. 47 = printed page 47 of the original book; the link on each page number is a permanent address you can send to anyone.

Provenance

From: #5 John Jacob & Wilma Rohner
Narrator: John Jacob "Jake" Rohner and Wilma "Willie" Rohner
Recorded: September 30, 1990 · Jake Rohner's home, Benton County, Oregon (afternoon)
Interviewer: Bob Zybach
Printed pages: pp. 94–95
Original: http://www.nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Oral_Histories/Soap_Creek_Valley/05_Rohner/Zybach_1993.pdf
Accessioned: From Bob Zybach’s upload, 23 August 2026

Part III. Printed session note: "The following transcnpt [transcript] was made from an interview with fake [Jake] and Willie at fake's [Jake's] home, during the afternoon of September 30, 1990. After reviewing the initial transcripts, fake [Jake] and Willie provided written corrections and additions. These com,nents [comments] appear throughout the manuscript enclosed in [brackets] and include the initials of the person that has provided the information." Both narrators present; speakers are marked in the printed text as [JAKE] and [WILMA]. A note "Pause in Recording" appears at p.64.

p. 94

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: Kansas.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Flat, no trees.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] No nothing. And Mom was happy out here. Of course they went to Washougal or somewhere, Washington first.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Through, I think through the employment agency. They got a good job on the dairy if I remember right.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I think so. I kind of thought they'd come out together, but maybe they didn't.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] No, I think Doc came to Silverton first, before Dad.

Bob Zybach: Are his descendants, Doc 's descendants still alive around here?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Oh, all of his kids are around fairly close to Corvallis. Eugene, Springfield I should say. Salem. Butch is the furthest, Florence.

22. Swiss Tripe Recipe

Bob Zybach: Was it George Rohner, the person you told me to contact, his son?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] No, George Rohner was Oswald's son.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] He lives in Salem. Leighton just called me today. We call him Leighton, because his first. . . his name's George Leighton, and he always wanted to go by Leighton when he was young. Well when he went in the service then they started calling him George in the service. Then he stuck with it ever since. Everybody calls him George but all the relatives call him Leighton. But he's one and the same.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] You talked to him today?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, he called me today. Wanted to know how to cook tripe. Of all things. Carl Kobler from Texas called him up and wanted to know how Mom cooked tripe. He just loved that stuff.

Bob Zybach: Your mom used to make tripe?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Man, it was good.

Bob Zybach: How do you make it?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Well, I'll tell you. First you gotta clean the sucker. That's the job. It ain't bad if you know how, though. But the city tripe, the way they do it now, you can buy it in the grocery stores every once in a while. You see it, it's real nice and

p. 95

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: white now. But it's been done with some kind of chemicals, and it just takes all the taste out of it. It just tastes like nothing. I don't know. But Mom used to clean it, and wash it out real good. And then you scalded it. And it kinda peels off like a chicken gizzard, that lining inside. Then she'd boil it, and cut it in little narrow strips, kinda like noodles. And then after it got tender she took flour and browned it in bacon grease and stuff like you was gonna make gravy, put it in the skillet, browned the flour. And add water to it, salt and pepper and carroway seeds. Cook quite a little while and then you dump these noodle things in there and let them simmer. Dang that was good!

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh, I love it.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I cooked it for Jake, we'd clean 'em.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] I did clean quite a few of 'em in later years.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I used to clean a lot of them years ago when Mom was living yet. I was always the one to clean it, now Jake started cleaning it. And I'll cook it, I love the stuff.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] And Lay or somebody said that if you leave the stuff in the stomach, leave it in the stomach over night, then it's much easier to scald and clean out. And it is, it must be a little chemical reaction or something.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] That's the way they did it in Tilamook. The Swissmans in Tillamook told us that.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] So we did it, and it does. It does scrape a lot easier.

Bob Zybach: So that's a Swiss recipe.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah. That's the way Mom cooked it.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Well, I think it's over a lot of Europe they use that. And I'll tell you, I really love it.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Ido too.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] And I'm so tempted. I see that nice white tripe in the grocery store and I'm tempted to buy it and I know better. And I have bought it once, and it's just kind of tasteless and darned if I didn't break down a year or so later and try it again and it's still kinda tasteless.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, and it turned the kettle all black.

Speaker attribution inferred from typography where the printed page prints only Q and A.

How to cite this item

The first line is the citation as it is printed in the original. Use it when you cite the work itself. Use the second when you cite this page.

As printed: Zybach, Bob 1993. John Jacob and Wilma Rohner. Family Farming on Coffin Butte Between World Wars, Benton County, Oregon: 1919-1941. Soap Creek Valley History Project, Monograph #05. Oregon State University Research Forests and College of Forestry, Corvallis, Oregon: 132 pp.
This page: Rohner 1993. 22. Swiss Tripe Recipe, pp. 94–95. America's School Trust Library, The Zybach Collection. https://schooltrusts.org/collections/zybach/soap-creek/m05-rohner/22-swiss-tripe-recipe/ (accessed 2026).
Cite this passage: Rohner 1993, p. 94 — Monograph #05:94
https://schooltrusts.org/collections/zybach/soap-creek/m05-rohner/22-swiss-tripe-recipe/#p94 Swap 94 for whichever printed page you are quoting: every page number in the margin is its own address.
Permalink: https://schooltrusts.org/collections/zybach/soap-creek/m05-rohner/22-swiss-tripe-recipe/
Original PDF: http://www.nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Oral_Histories/Soap_Creek_Valley/05_Rohner/Zybach_1993.pdf

More on citing this collection: How to cite the Zybach Collection.

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