By 6am the trotters had almost all been snapped up and only two trays of brains and a handful of livers remained on the shelf.

The blood had been washed away, and Jean-Jacques Arnoult stood in a white coat and cap surveying his stand at the wholesale food market in Rungis, near Paris, with satisfaction.

For this French offal merchant, the good times are rolling again. His tripe, tongues, sweetbreads, oxtails, kidneys and hearts have been propelled back into culinary fashion by the global financial meltdown, with diners turning to cheap traditional dishes.

The French offal industry, which produces 230,000 tonnes of food a year, has witnessed a 15 per cent rise in sales since the investment bank Lehman Brothers went out of business. French butchers have seen a 2.6 per cent fall in beef sales.

“It’s not that people have become a lot poorer in this country, but they think they’re poorer because of all the talk of the crisis,” said Mr Arnoult, whose family has been selling les produits tripiers since the 1870s. “So they are looking to reduce the food budget and they are eating more offal.”

The trend is a relief to Mr Arnoult after a long decline in products once considered a central part of the nation’s gastronomic culture, before being dismissed as unsafe and outdated in more recent times. Veal sweetbreads were banned between 2000 and 2002 amid fears over “mad cow” disease, while braised beef cheeks were neglected as diners turned to sushi or cod acras. Tripe à la mode de Caen - cooked in cider and said to be William the Conqueror’s favourite meal - has long been out of favour.

The National Federation of French Offal Merchants has tried to win back custom with an annual, month-long promotion backed by top chefs and leading food writers. One initiative involves the publication of a book, Plats Canailles, containing offal recipes from prestigious restaurants, such as lamb tongue, tomato and basil tart from the Hotel Lutetia in Paris.

A second book, Testicles, focuses on a body part that is “one of the rare bits of human flesh worth eating”, it says. The claim is a little misleading, however, since Blandine Vié, the author, recommends chicken, sheep and boar, but not men, in her recipes.

Mr Arnoult, 55, says the campaign has reminded the French that offal-based dishes are among their finest delicacies - but it took the crisis to send families searching for products such as pigs’ liver at €4 a kilo, or beef tongue at about €6 a kilo. “I think the increase in sales is also due to the need for comfort from traditional dishes or traditional values,” he said.

As he spoke, an employee sliced open a calf’s head before removing the brain. “That’s a luxury food,” said Mr Arnoult. “ To think that when I first went to the US, they used it as petfood!”

OFFAL ON THE MENU

Testicles in tomato sauce

Cut several pairs of sheep’s testicles in half and cover them with rock salt for 30 mins.
Make a roux sauce and cook peeled tomatoes in it slowly.
Add the testicles, salt and pepper.
Cover in water and boil until the water is all but evaporated

Lamb brains in bread crumbs

Cook the brains in boiling water for ten minutes.
Remove and dry them, cover them in flour, egg yolk and bread crumbs.
Fry them gently with capers for six minutes

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