Why the humble black pudding has been taken off the breakfast blacklist
Black pudding, blood pudding or blood sausage is a type of sausage made by cooking blood or dried blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled. The dish exists in various cultures from Asia to Europe. Pig, cattle, sheep, duck and goat blood can be used depending on different countries.
In Europe, typical fillers include meat, fat, suet, bread, sweet potato, onion, chestnuts, barley, and oatmeal while in Spain and Asia, potato is often replaced by rice in the black pudding.
And in casting pearls before swine, a genuine gem has been overlooked. Black
pudding – made (depending on the region) with pig’s blood, fat, onion,
seasoning and cereal – mops up a large quantity of a waste product from
slaughter: the blood. Because fresh blood deteriorates quickly, a means was
found to preserve it by putting it inside an intestine and boiling it until
set (the oldest-known recipe dates back more than 1,500 years).
Debates rage over who makes the best black pudding. The battle is not just
between France and Britain (ours is better, of course) but locally, between
counties and even islands. I prefer the less fatty Stornoway Black to the
fat-studded Lancashire puddings that taste faintly of minty pennyroyal. The
latter have a huge and loyal following all over the UK, however.
Others prefer theirs out of the skin, cooked in a loaf shape. Morcilla pudding
from Spain is coarse, fatty and tastes strongly of garlic – but is good in
its way. French boudin noir has a smooth, cakey texture and is made with
garlic and cream. A good one – and the best shop I know for them is in the
old university district of Calais – can be almost elegant, with fried pieces
served with the creamiest of puréed potatoes.
Watching any black pudding being made is an alarming experience. The blood,
reconstituted from a dried powder with water, is poured by the bucketful
into large vats. It’s rare today to see one made with fresh blood. In the
UK, this most natural of ingredients is usually disposed of at the abattoir,
and black pudding producers often buy dried blood from other European
countries.
There has been something of a running battle over the issue with traditional
slaughterhouses and the Meat Hygiene Service, which inevitably believes
blood to be “high risk”.
When the other ingredients have been added, the mixture is funnelled into
either artificial or real casings (by which I mean intestines) and tied at
intervals firmly with string. Then – and this is the dramatic bit – the
pudding-maker dons a full-length waterproof apron and rubber gloves that
extend right up to his armpits, lifts up 10ft-long slippery, filled casings
and allows the mass of them to slither into a water boiler to cook. Shortly
after, that distinctive rich scent begins to fill the room.
A little sympathy for the squeamish is due. Black pudding is a cradle food;
one that is hard to recall disliking. We gave it to my children without
telling them what it was. They eat it now, even knowing what is inside. They
will, hopefully, one day fall in to that group of shoppers who mindfully set
out to use all edible parts of an animal, and not selfishly bypass meaty
extremities as they head to supermarkets in search of cheap prosciutto.
The black-pudding trend reveals, however, that the sausage has new fans. If
the cult grows as fast as it appears to have done already, we might emerge
from this financial mess not only well fed but better for the experience.
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