“I can’t understand how anyone could eat a bowel. I can’t eat liver, either understanding what the liver’s function is in a body. (dry heave)”
Yes of all things to eat from an animal, lets eat its “oil filter”. LOL
A serious answer to that question is that it is about as cheap a meat as is available.
The poor (80 or more years ago) purchased the cheapest cuts of meat because that is what they could afford. The of course learned ways to prepare these cuts to make them palatable.
Welfare has of course changed the mathematics of the food supply and now the poor can afford better quality cuts of meat. However eating habits of families change slowly because eating habits are passed down from parent to child.
Other cheap cuts of meat that you will still find people buying because of family or ethnic traditions are; pigs feet, pigs skin (prepared by pan or deep frying to make pork rinds or cracklings), Rocky Mountain Oysters (do I need to tell you what these are?), tong (most often pickled).
I would be surprised if most people in this country, if they thought about it seriously could not think of an ethnic dish that their family enjoys that fit in this category of cheap meat dish that is now an ethnic delicacy.