Forget avocado toast. The original breakfast of champions was way more metal. We’re talking about black pudding, a sausage made from blood, and its history is as rich and dark as its color. 🩸
This isn’t some modern foodie invention. People have been turning blood into a meal for thousands of years, and black pudding is one of the oldest and most legendary sausages in the world.
The story of black pudding starts in ancient Greece. The first known mention of a blood sausage appears in Homer’s The Odyssey, written around 800 BC. In the story, Odysseus is waiting for a fight and sees some blood sausages being roasted.
“As when a man besides a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to have it roasted quickly, so Odysseus tossed from side to side, pondering how he might lay his hands upon the shameless suitors.”
That’s right, one of the most epic heroes in literature was thinking about blood sausage before a battle. If that’s not a seal of approval, what is? The Romans loved it too, and from there, blood sausage spread across Europe, with each culture creating its own version (like morcilla in Spain and boudin noir in France).
Okay, let’s get to the gross part. Black pudding is traditionally made from pork blood, mixed with a filler like oatmeal or barley, onions, and spices like nutmeg and ginger. This mixture is then stuffed into a casing (traditionally tripe, or animal intestine) and boiled or baked.
The result is a firm, dry sausage with a surprisingly complex flavor: a little sweet, a little spicy, and with a distinct metallic tang from the iron in the blood. It’s a key part of a full English or Irish breakfast, usually sliced and fried until crispy. 🍳
Black pudding’s history gets even wilder. During the Wars of the Roses in England, there’s a story of a battle near Manchester where the opposing armies ran out of arrows and ammunition. What did they do? They started throwing black puddings at each other. This event is still celebrated today at the annual World Black Pudding Throwing Championships. We’re not kidding. 😂
It was also surprisingly controversial. In the 17th century, some religious groups argued that eating blood was forbidden by the Bible, and they shunned black pudding as a sinful food. A food so metal it was considered a sin? That’s pretty epic.
So, the next time you see black pudding on a menu, give it a nod of respect. You’re looking at a food with thousands of years of history, a food of heroes, warriors, and rebels. It’s not just breakfast—it’s a taste of glory. 🤘
1.Britannica: Black pudding - https://www.britannica.com/topic/black-pudding
2.Wikipedia: Black pudding - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding
3.English Breakfast Society: A Guide to Traditional Black Pudding - https://englishbreakfastsociety.com/black-pudding
