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Topics: News, UK News, Food And Drink
Kit Roberts
People have been left feeling queasy after watching a video on how English brekkie staple black pudding is made.
In fairness, black pudding is absolutely one of those dishes which you either love or you hate.
The sausage, which is made from pigs' blood, has variants around the world as well, with many countries having their own version of a blood sausage.
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However, needless to say the process of making a blood sausage, whether that's black pudding or any other kind, can look a bit gnarly.
Honestly, with the name 'blood sausage', I'm not sure quite what people were expecting.
A video shows the process, including the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients, all being mixed together to form the filling.
Perhaps the section which might turn stomachs the most, particularly with our engrained aversion to fat, is the boiling of pig fat and smoked bacon fat.
The cooked fat actually forms a large part of the mixture, and is mixed together alongside the dry ingredients which vary from recipe to recipe. Typically they might be oats, barley, or some other grain which can provide starch to help bind the sausage together.
The next part of the process is the introduction of the key ingredient - the blood.
In my mind, I had imagined gallons of fresh blood being tipped into the vat and cooked down to create the sausage filling.
Instead, however, the blood is actually introduced in a dried form. It billows out as it's poured, with clouds of the dark red stuff being thrown up.
It makes sense to be fair, presumably the dried blood has a longer shelf life than fresh, and is less likely to become infected with contaminants that would render a whole batch unsellable.
Once it's all been mixed together, the filling is put into the casings which are stapled shut. The puddings are then steamed to cook and set them, before being vacuum packed to extend their shelf life.
While the process isn't exactly pretty, it's more or less what you would expect for black pudding. I'd still sooner eat black pudding than any of the US-style hot dogs. You know, the ones that come in jars and where the filling looks like a mixture of clay and wallpaper paste.
While may people were able to look past the process and declare how nice the pudding tastes, for others, it was just a bit grim.
"Just the thought is actually sending chills down my spine," wrote one viewer.
"Makes my stomach turn now," added another, while a third said: "As a vegetarian I seriously cannot imagine eating anything more rank."