Continuing on with our oddities of British cuisine series we bring you the pudding collection, namely black pudding, white pudding and red pudding. Now if you are used to classic desert pudding of the UK you will be in for a big surprise. You told not want to have any of these puddings with iced cream!
Table of Contents
- Black pudding
- What is black pudding?
- What does black pudding taste like?
- What is white pudding?
- What is the difference between black pudding and white pudding?
- What is a red pudding?
Black pudding
In my mind there is no beating a British Breakfast, and you cannot have a British breakfast without black pudding.
What is black pudding?
What is black pudding? Well if you know your British English then you will know that pudding means dessert, so sweet. This is not a sweet dessert. In fact the word comes f from the Latin botellus, which roughly translates to small sausage.
The dish originated from necessity, as in not wasting the blood of a slaughtered animal. Nowadays it is just pork that is used, but in previous times sheep, or cow blood was also used.
Enough already what exactly is a black pudding? A black pudding is a highly seasoned blood sausage originating from the United Kingdom. It is made from pork blood, with pork fat or beef suet, and a cereal, usually oatmeal, oat groats or barley groats. That’s the very simple answer to the question.
What does black pudding taste like?
It is tastes a lot less blood like than blood sausages from other countries such as China. The high density of oats and the like give it a very textured taste. It can be quite dry and is akin to a very seasoned sausage. It has been compared to a saveloy, but they are very different. Traditionally it comes with an English breakfast, although finely sliced, rather than in full sausage form. My top tip is black pudding with brown sauce. What is brown sauce? That’s a conversation for another time.
What is white pudding?
White pudding is much more popular in Ireland, Scotland and even way out in Canada. It is not all that white and looks and largely tastes the same as a black pudding. I remember being slightly disappointed the first time I tried and finding it was basically the same thing.
What is the difference between black pudding and white pudding?
Quite simply the white pudding includes more animal fats, but does not include blood. Other than that they are almost the same, particularly the taste. This means that despite the lack of pig blood a white pudding is not vegetarian, nor vegan friendly. Is white pudding kosher? I honestly don;t know.
What is a red pudding?
The last in the back, white and indeed red pudding chronicles!
The red pudding looks and to an extent tastes a lot like a saveloy, which you can read more about here.
It is fashioned into an 8 inch sausage from the following ingredients, beef, pork, pork rind or bacon, suet, rusk, wheat flour, spices, salt, beef fat and colouring.
The fashioned sausage is then often deep fried (like most things in Scotland) and is traditionally served at fish and chip shops in Fife and the East of Scotland.
The red pudding is not a breakfast dish like its more illustrious cousins, nor does it enjoy the popularity of te other two on a global scale. That being said were I to find myself at a chippie in Fife, I would certainly give it a try.
To read about the correct way to eat fish and chips click here.
And those are the colored pudding chronicles of UK cuisine!
