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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Black pudding is back on the menu, thanks to austerity and celebrity chefs

Black pudding may be as integral to British culinary culture as fish and chips, spotted dick and the Sunday roast, but – perhaps due to queasiness over its main ingredient – it has languished at the bottom of the nation’s collective shopping list for years.

But now, through a combination of celebrity chef endorsements and economic austerity the “blood sausage” is enjoying a sales boom. Producers of traditional black puddings, from the Outer Hebrides to the rolling foothills around the Lancashire valleys, say demand for their product has soared by up to 25% over the past year.

Duncan Haigh, owner of Arthur Haigh, near Thirsk in North Yorkshire, which makes the award-winning Doreen’s Black Pudding, had to build an extension to his premises in order to cope with demand.

“Black pudding is not just for breakfast any more,” Haigh said. “A lot of chefs are using it because they realise it brings richness to a dish. It’s now found in starters and main courses.”

Depending on the regional variation, black puddings contain a mix of dried blood, salt and rusk.

Some producers prefer ox or sheep blood to that of pigs while others employ suet and oatmeal in their recipes. But whatever the outcome, traditional black pudding makers keep their exact contents a closely guarded secret.

Chadwick’s Original Bury Black Pudding has been making its distinctive puddings since 1865. The firm’s stall on Bury market, Greater Manchester, is a local tourist attraction.

Tony is married to Mary Chadwick. He said: “It’s a family recipe which has been handed down. Mary’s father wouldn’t tell her what it was until he’d had a stroke. And I wasn’t told until the night before we had our first child.”

He added: “I call [our puddings] Lancashire viagra. It is honest food, cheap and filling. People are either repulsed by it or can’t stop bestowing praise.

Compared to sales of black puddings in Scotland and Yorkshire – up 25% and 20% respectively year-on-year – Manchester and Lancashire-based black pudding companies report increases of 10%. However, in the weeks following promotion of black pudding by television chefs, sales rocket by up to 50%.

Some black pudding adherents believe the confection to be as old as civilisation itself. The first written record of black pudding is thought to be in Homer’s Odyssey. The Greek general Agamemnon was said to have fed his army on blood and onions to keep them strong.

Andrew Holt, owner of The Real Lancashire Black Pudding Company in Rossendale, says that the Romans were expert sausage makers who took the blood and onions recipe, placed it into skins and thereby introduced the black pudding across their empire. Holt, who is a Knight of the Black Pudding – awarded in France where the meal goes by the title of boudin noir – produces 10 tonnes of black pudding on a good week. That equates to about 15,500 individual puds. Meanwhile, his company also supplies Morrisons and other retailers with tripe, sales of which have rocketed by more than 300% over the past year. “We literally can’t pack enough tripe for Morrisons,” said Holt. “We are constantly running out.”

Chadwick’s also reports a much greater appetite for offal, including a surge in demand for pigs’ feet, cow heel and pigs’ cheeks. One imaginatively-titled form of tripe is called “slut”.

Most traditional black pudding makers take a dim view of pale imitations, including Robert Smith, owner of WJ MacDonald, producers of the Stornoway Black Pudding in the Western Isles. Pride in their produce is so strong that a bid has been made to the EU to give the Stornoway black pudding protection status.

But some change is inevitable. Today’s butchers market low-fat or “lean” black pudding for the more health conscious consumer, while The Real Lancashire’s vegetarian black pudding, the V Pud – made with synthetic sleeve, pearl barley, rusk, rolled oats, soya protein and non-hydrogenated vegetable oil – now accounts for one in 10 of its black pudding sales.

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Proof of black pudding birthplace is back home in Bury

A long-lost sign marking the birthplace of Bury’s famous black pudding has been returned to its home – from Yorkshire.

Historians believe the town’s first black pudding was made and sold at Casewell’s on Union Street in 1810.

The shop was just an ordinary terrace house displaying the Lancashire delicacy in its window and the pudding were made there until it was demolished in 1968.

The well-known sign above its entrance was thought to have been lost after the shop and other buildings in the town centre street were torn down.

But bosses at Bury Art Museum received a phone call from a woman who bought it at auction in Richmond, North Yorkshire, in 2002 – and who has now offered to donate it to them.

It emerged the sign had been saved by a shop owner on Union Street and taken by him to Harrogate – before it was sold on.

Bury hosts the annual World Black Pudding Throwing Championships – where competitors hurl the snack at Yorkshire puddings. The proud association led museum chiefs to enlist the help of specialists to restore the sign to its former glory and it is now set to go display.

Museum curator Susan Lord said: “The phone call to us was completely unexpected. The lady rang to ask if we wanted to take the sign. We are just delighted to have it back in Bury.

“Because the sign was considered of significant historical importance, the museum decided to have it restored. Half of the restoration cost was very kindly met by the Bury Black Pudding Company. In return for the help received, Bury Art Museum is lending the sign to the company and it will be on display in their foyer for the next three years. The sign will then be put on display in the museum.”

The shop’s last owner was Vincent Ashworth, who made black puddings there until it was demolished.

His daughter Betty Ashworth, now 73 and living in Tottington, Bury, was brought up in the shop and was present at the sign’s unveiling.

Susan added: “Betty doesn’t remember what happened to the sign but she was intrigued to hear of what happened to it. The sign has a real history to it and it will be a welcome addition to the town because Bury is well-known for its black puddings.”

?Black pudding, made with pig or cattle blood, are a delicacy all over the world but in Lancashire, legend has it that during a War of the Roses battle soldiers hurled food – white puddings for Yorkshire and black puddings for Lancashire – at each other when ammunition dried up.

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