Christmas Eve always meant two things for me as a child: the excitement of Santa Claus’s arrival and my dad’s homemade menudo. As an adult, the latter is still true—I literally wait all year for his soup.

When I was a kid, we used to visit my dad’s side of the family in Mexico for the holidays. We all gathered around my grandma’s kitchen table, laughing, catching up, and chowing down on soup. Now, we celebrate Christmas at my parents’ house with my mom’s side of the family, and the first thing my cousins ask when they walk through the door is, “Where’s the menudo?”

The dish’s popularity is pretty ironic. Once known as the “soup of the poor,” menudo is believed to have been invented before the 1910 Mexican Revolution, when food was scarce, to make sure no parts of the cow were going to waste.

Isaac Farías, a Brugal rum brand ambassador, grew up hearing his grandma telling stories about the cattle runs that came through San Antonio and its massive stockyard in the 1900s. When she was younger, her family would buy barrels filled with parts of the cow people didn’t typically want to eat, making menudo with the intestines, heart, and other organs.

I typically leave the ingredients out when trying to get my friends to taste menudo, because, well, the truth can gross people out. Today, menudo typically consists of beef tripe, hominy, lime, cilantro, oregano, and guajillo chile, but it can also include cow feet and bone marrow. Fair warning: Due to the nature of what’s cooking, the soup has a horrible pungent smell at first, but you learn to love it.

In Houston, you don’t have to wait for the holidays to devour menudo. Many restaurants serve it year-round, although it’s often a weekend-only offering. La Mexicana general manager Zulema Gonzales, who operates the Montrose restaurant alongside her siblings, says when she asks her parents about menudo only being sold on weekends, they give her the same two answers: It’s a hangover cure, and it’s very labor intensive.

“To make a big batch, it’s going to be three or four hours of work, and some kitchens just can’t accommodate that,” Gonzales says.

When my dad makes it, he knows he’s in for a full day in the kitchen. From the rinsing and cooking of the meat, to actually making the soup, the process takes him over four hours. And while it doesn’t actually heal a hangover, menudo is nutrient-rich and broth-based, helping replenish the body as you recover. We often ask my dad to make another batch for New Year’s Day.

La Mexicana was one of the many restaurants that only sold menudo on weekends, until about seven years ago. Now, the staff offers it daily and has its menudo skills down to a tee.

Gonzales says the restaurant will typically make a big batch about every two days. Whatever is left over from the first day will be stored in a cooler, then the next day, it’s placed back on the stove, where it simmers in a pot until it’s all been ordered. Of course, weekends are the prime time for the soup. To keep up with the demand, Gonzales says Fridays are the dedicated days for making an extra-large batch.

There are different versions of the soup within the different regions of Mexico. Menudo rojo, my favorite, uses dried red chile, and is more common in northern parts of the country. In coastal states like Sinaloa and Jalisco, you might find menudo blanco instead. This iteration traditionally doesn’t include the chile, although some do add jalapeños for a kick.

While cow stomach is essential to menudo, the animal wasn’t always part of the Mexican diet. Adán Medrano, a food historian and president of the Texas Indigenous Food Project, explains that cattle and pork were introduced in the 1600s by the Spaniards. The Indigenous peoples, who previously ate bison—which were being killed intentionally by settlers—had to adapt.

“They had to learn how to deal with these new animals, with new product, using their creativity,” Medrano says. “That’s why both asado de puerco and in the menudo and others, you have the foreign ingredients brought by Spaniards reinterpreted with an Indigenous palate. And that’s how you get the chiles and these lovely flavors that are unique to the region.”

To align with the northern region of Mexico, Upper Kirby restaurant Picos offers menudo rojo. And like La Mexicana, Picos is also up for the challenge of serving menudo on its daily menu. To ensure the soup is up to par every day, restaurant owner Arnaldo Richards says the kitchen reconstitutes the heat right before it’s served, allowing for a constant rotation of the soup in the kitchen. This helps the menudo rehydrate; otherwise, it turns to a form of gelatin.

Gonzales notes that menudo is more than just a delicious soup that can bring you back to life after a night out. Like me, her fondest memories come from eating it on special occasions. She says the soup is a sign that they’ve made it to the after party. Whether at a quinceañera or wedding, once it hits 2am, the menudo is always pulled out—alongside more tequila and beer.

“It’s a cultural thing,” Gonzales says. “It’s very much integrated in our culture and heritage—it’s not just a meal.”

And despite its old “soup of the poor” nickname, this past year my dad was hesitant to even make the soup because it cost about $6 per pound—but some begging from everyone helped. He joked he might as well have made rib eye soup, but he knows it wouldn’t have felt like Christmas without it.

Even with the countless Houston restaurants I can visit to get my hands on menudo—from La Mexicana and Picos to Imperial Bakery and Taqueria Arandas—nothing comes close to my dad’s version. And no, I will not be sharing my leftovers.