Black pudding (also known as blood pudding, boudin noir, kiszka) traces its roots to ancient fresh sausages composed of pig’s blood mixed with thickeners. Recipes evolved according to culture and cuisine. Where and when were the first blood puddings made? Jean-Francois Revel credits Ancient Greece: “Aphtonitas, the inventor of blood sausage.” in Culture and Cuisine: A Journey Through the History of Food (p. 29).
What is black pudding? “Black pudding is a sausage…made from pig’s blood with some thickening agent, such as cereal, and spices. Its name–a reference to the darkened colour of the cooked blood–is of long standing…The synonymous blood pudding is equally ancient, but nowadays much less usual. In England, the Midlands and the North are the great areas of black pudding appreciation; Bury in Lancashire is often claimed as the black pudding capital. But black puddings form an essential part of the basic peasant cuisine of many other European countries…Elsewhere in Europe a black pudding is a blutwurst (Germany) or a kashanka (Poland).” —An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 31)
“Blood sausages, sausages filled with blood, with cereal or other vegetable matter to absorb this, and fat. The most familiar type is the black pudding or boudin noir, English and French terms for much the same thing. It is pudding in the old sense of something enclosed in a sausage skin. The black pudding is probably the most ancient of sausages or puddings. Some would claim this distinction for haggis, but the earliest mention in literature is of something tending more towards black pudding, at least in its filling. Book 18 of Homer’s Odyssey, around 1000 BC, refers to a stomach filled with blood and fat and roasted over a fire. The reason of such dishes is clear enough. When a pig is killed it is bled, and a large amount of blood becomes available. This has a very short keeping time if not preserved. Putting it into one of the vessels which the entrails of animals conveniently furnish, along with other offal with a limited keeping time, is an obvious solution. The oldest detailed recipe for black pudding, in the compilation attributed to Apicus (material of the first few centuries AD), calls for lengths of intestine, rather than a stomach, as the container. It is a rich recipe with no cereal, but chopped hard-boiled egg yolks, pine kernels, onions, and leeks. Common black puddings of the time were probably made with cereal. In medieval Europe it was not unusual for even relatively poor families to own a pig, which was slaughtered in the autumn. Black puddings were therefore made everywhere.” —Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 82)
“Sausages were also a great favourite; indeed from Greek times they appeared to have been a staple of the kitchen in all countries. Perhaps the reason lies in their economical way of using all the odd bits of the carcass and once well seasoned, moistened with tasty fat, the smoking and drying intensifying the flavour; they become an addiction in a country’s food, reflecting the tastes of a region in their use of particular flavourings. Some aspects of the Roman Lucanian sausage had remained with the Anglo-Saxons…This is a highly seasoned sausage with pepper, cumin, savory, rue and mixed herbs packed into the cleaned intestine and then smoked…Late autumn was the time to make black puddings, which became a delicacy to be eaten on feast days. There could be puddings of porpoise, mixed with oatmeal, seasoning and blood, or of capon’s neck where the stuffing was forced into the neck then roasted with the bird…How much spice was used in recipes must have been a personal choice partly dictated by economics.” —British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History, Colin Spencer [Columbia University Press:New York] 2002 (p. 90)
“When the pig was killed black puddings were…a great mainstay of the [Medieval] peasant kitchen and would remain so for the next 600 years. Out of the annual pig killing came such dishes as brawn, souse–the ears, cheeks, snout and trotters a pickled in brine or ale–as well as the puddings, enjoyed as festive food around Christmastide.” —ibid (p. 94)
“Much of Roman cookery was highly spiced; and nowhere were the spices more prominent than in the sausages and black puddings of the period. Made usually in the cleaned intestine or caul (omentum) of pig, sheep or goat, they were a sophisticated development of the more primitive haggis. Some were produced for immediate eating, but others were smoked a long while above the hearth before they came to table…The tradition of sausage making lingered on in northern Europe after the end of the western Roman empire. The Anglo-Saxons developed their own versions. Although their recipes have not survived Lucanian sausages appear in a Latin and Anglo-Saxon vocabulary as part of a list of pig products…The Norman Conquest brought the sausage varieties of Norman-French cookery into English cuisine…Sausages were made from the lean pork; and black puddings from the animal’s blood. The town cookshops often sold sausages and black puddings, and at least sometimes tainted meat was used in their manufacture. The best and also the safest were those made at home…Black puddings were also made at pig-killing time and the favourite season for this was late autumn. The animal’s blood was blended with minced onions and diced fat, spiced with ginger, cloves and a little pepper, and stuffed into lengths of intestine. The puddings could be kept for up to three days, and were boiled in water before being eaten. In Britain puddings, rich with blood, fat and spices, became quite a delicacy, to be eaten on high days and holidays. The word pudding, moreover, soon took on a wider meaning than that of blood-sausage, and came to be associated with the idea of stuffing of any kind…The pudding of porpoise was a dish for the nobility. The pig was the source of puddings for common folk. Take the blood of the swine, and swing it, then put thereto minced onions largely with salt, and the suet of the god minced’, begins an Elizabethan recipe…[Early modern period] Both black blood-puddings and sausages continued to be made from the traditional ingredients…Both black and white puddings were well liked in Tudor and Stuart times…” —Food and Drink in Britain From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson [Academy Chicago:Chicago] 1991 (p. 308-315)
Brid Mahon’s Land of Milk and Honey: The Story of Traditional Irish Food and Drink offers these notes on Celtic traditions:
“Most households killed a pig at certain times of the year, and in the more substantial farms seeral pigs were usually killed on the same day. Certain superstitions were once observed regarding the time of killing. A pig should never be killed unless there was a letter R in the month, which meant in effect that pigs were seldom slaughtered during the summer months. In the counties of Mayo and Galway it was believed that killing should take place under a full moon. If the animal was killed when the moon was waning the meat would reduce in size, while if the killing was done when the moon was waxing or full the meat would increase. Killing the pig was an important social occasion, for it meant full and plenty for all. Each neighbour who came to help with the pig killing brought a handful of salt for the curing, and when the work eas done each would get a share of the puddings and the fresh pork. The slaughtering was done by the men, but it was the women who were responsible for curing and smoking the hams and bacons…Whe the pig was killed the blood was collected in a vessel and used to make black puddings. In Ring, Co Waterford, they described the old method used:
Long ago when they killed pigs they kept the intestines to make puddings. They washed them clear in a running stream and they were left to soak in spring water overnight. The casings were cut into fifteen inch lengths, tied at one end. Salt, lard, oatmeal, finely chopped onions, spices, peppers and cloves, together with a cup of flour were mixed with the pig’s blood which had been collected in a bucket. Each pudding was three-quarters filled and tied at the end. It was dropped into a pot half-filled with water which had been brought to simmering point, cooked for about an hour, then taken up, allowed to cool, and divided amongst the neighbours. This was always done. When needed for use puddings were fried in a pan.” —Land of Milk and Honey: The Story of Traditional Irish Food and Drink, Brid Mahon [Mercier Press:Cork] 1998 (p. 58-9)
Kiszka: Polish Blood Pudding Blood sausages and puddings such as Polish kiszka have ancient roots. According to the food historians, pork products of various sorts were very popular in medieval Poland:
“In medieval Poland, two distinct types of pigs were raised for general consumption and there were doubtless a number of gradations between the two extremes. The first was called the “great swine,” a half-wild, half-domesticated razorback often illustrated in medieval manuscripts. The other–small, mean, and not easily domesticated–was known in Polish as “swamp hog”…Archaeological evidence confirms the high proportion of pork in the Polish diet at this time [1380]…Specific pork products mentioned in period texts include scoldre or soldre (ham), salsucia (sausage), and farcimina (blood pudding or blood sausage–called kiszka in modern Polish). Blood sausage was introduced to Poland before A.D. 1000 from German-speaking areas. It is known that beer was supplied to the royal kitchens for the purpose of preparing a blood soup called czernina or juszka in old Polish and referred to as iusculum in Latin. Blood from ducks, geese, and pigs was used…The farcimina, according to Szymon Syrennius’s discussion in connection with millet kaska, “are used for stuffing blood sausages of pork and beef, having first been cooked in the fat. Farcimina appears in much earliers sources in a similar context, so there is little doubt as to what is meant by it. Similar sausages using various tupes of grain stuffings are still made in Poland today…Regarding methods of preparation, fried pork must have been popular because Polish texts often mention frying pans.” —Food and Drink in Medieval Poland: Rediscovering a Cuisine of the Past, Maria Dembinska, translated by Magdalena Thomas, Revised and Adapted by William Woys Weaver [University of Pennsylvania Press:Philadelphia] 1999 (p. 88-90)
Survey of black pudding recipes through time
[Ancient Rome: Apicius] “Black Pudding Botellum sic facies: sex ovi vitellis coctis, nucleis pineis concisei cepam, porrum concisum, ius crudum misces, piper minutum et sic intestinum farcies. Adidies liquamen et vinum et sic coques.
“Blood sausage is made as follows: 6 hard-boiled egg yolks, finely chopped pine kernels mixed with onion, finely sliced leek. Mix raw blood with finely ground pepper and fill a pig’s intestine with this. Add wine and liquamen and cook. (Ap. 55)
“Take 1 litre of blood, 6 hard-boiled egg yolks, 1 small leeek, 1 onion, 200 g pine kernels and 3 teaspoons of finely ground pepper. Season the blood with salt. Chop the onion and the leek finely in a food-processor. Add the mashed egg yolks, then the blood, and mix thorougly. Funnel the mixture with the coarsely chopped pine kernels into a pig’s intestine, then twist in into sausages. Put the sausages into cold white wine with garum and bring it slowly to the bpil. Simmer until they are cooked.” —Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome, Patrick Faas [Palgrave Macmillan:New York] 1994, 2003 (p. 260-261)
[1393] “Item, pour faire boudins, aiez le sang du porc recueilli en un bel bacin ou paelle, et quant vous aurez entendu à vostre pourcel veoir deffaire, et fait laver très bien et mis cuire vostre froissure, et tandis qu’elle cuira, ostez du fons du bacin les coles du sang et gettez hors; et après, aiez oignons pelés et mincés jusques à la montance de la moitié du sang, avec la montance de la moitié de la gresse qui est entre les boyaulx, que l’on appelle l’entrecerelle5 des boyaulx, mincée menue comme dés, ensemble un petit de sel broyé, et gettez ou sang. Puis, aiez gingembre, clou, et pou de poivre, et broiez tout ensemble. Puis, aiez les menus boyaulx bien lavés, renversés et essangés6 en rivière courant, et pour oster la freschumée,7 aiez-les mis en une paelle sur le feu, et remuez; puis, mettez sel avec; et faites seconde fois, et encores troisième fois: et puis lavez, et après renversez et les lavez, puis mettez essuier sur une touaille; et les pousser et estraindre8 pour seicher. (L’en dit l’entrecerele et sont les gras boiaulx qui ont gresse dedens que l’en arrache à un coustel). Après ce que vous aurez mis et adjousté par esgales portions et quantités, pour autant de sang [p. 126] moitié d’oignons, et pour autant de sang, au quart de gresse, et puis quant vos boudins seront de ce emplis, faites-les cuire en une paelle en l’eaue de froissure, et picquiez d’une espingle quant ils s’enflent, ou autrement ils crèveroient. Nota que le sang se garde bien deux jours, voire trois, puis que les espices sont dedens. Et aucuns pour espices, ont poulieul,9 grant sarriette, ysope, marjolaine, queullis10 quant ils sont en fleur et puis séchés, pilés, pour espices. Et quant à la froissure, mettez-la en un pot de cuivre pour cuire au feu, tout entière et sans sel, et mettez le long de la gorge dehors le pot, car par la froissure s’escumera; et quant elle sera cuite, si l’ostez et pour faire le potage la regardez. Pour faire boudins de foie, prenez deux morceaulx de foie, deux morceaulx de mol, un morcel de gresse, et mettez en un bouel11 avecques du sang: et au surplus comme dessus. Nota que l’en fait bien boudins du sang d’une oé,12 mais qu’elle soit maigre, car de la maigre les boyaulx sont plus larges que de la grasse.” —Le Menagier De Paris
English translation of above recipe: “Item, to make black pudding, have the pig blood collected in a fair basin or pan, and when you intend to see your pig destroyed, have the lights washed very well and put on to cook, and as soon as it is cooked, take from the bottom of the pan the sticky lumps of blood and take them out; and then, have onions peeled and chopped to the amount of half the blood, with the amount of half the suet which is among the guts, which is called the “entrecercle” of the guts, chopped as small as dice, together with a little ground salt, and throw it in the blood. Then, have ginger, clove, and a little pepper, and grind it all together. Then, have the small guts well washed, turned inside out and all blood removed in a running river, and to remove the dampness, have them placed in a pan on the fire, and stir; then, add salt; and do this a second time, and yet a third time: and then wash, and turn inside out and wash them, then place to dry on a towel; and squeeze and wring them to dry. (They say the “entrecercle” and these are the large guts which have suet inside which you get out with a knife). After you have added and adjusted by the right amounts and quantities, so that you have half as much onions as blood, and a quarter as much suet as blood, and then when your black puddings are filled with this, put them to cook in a pan in the water from the lights, and prick with a pin when they swell, or otherwise they will burst. Note that the blood keeps well for two days, in truth for three, since the spices are inside. And some for spices, have pennyroyal, great savory, hyssop, marjoram, gathered when they are in flower and then dried, ground, for spices. And as for the lights, put in a copper pot to cook on the fire, complete and without salt, and put the length of the groove (throat) outside the pot, so that the liquid may be skimmed; and when it is cooked, take it out and consider it for making soup. To make black puddings with liver, take two pieces of liver, two pieces of lung, a piece of suet, and place in a gut with blood: and with the remainder as above. Note that you can make nice black puddings from a goose, but it will be thin, and because of the thinness the guts are bigger than the suet.”
[1570] To make blood sausages (sanguinacci) from the blood of a domestic pig. Just as soon as the pig is killed, drain of its blood, and as it is draining put it through a filter or through a fine-meshed strainer: that is done so that hairs and other dirt do not get into the blood. When it has been filtered and is still warm, break it up with your hand because if it coagulates you cannot make black pudding of it. For every six pounds of blood, put a pound of fresh goat’s or cow’ milk into it – which milk should be somewhat warm – eight ounces of sugar, one and a half ounces of ground cinnamon, half an ounce of cloves, half an ounce of pepper, a quarter-ounce of ground nutmeg, a pound of fresh pork kidney-fat – with the skin off it and cut up into bits – half a pound of very clean dry currants, an ounce and a half of crushed raw aniseed, three ounces of salt and four ounces of onion – beaten and sautéed without burning. Then get large and small pork intestines that are very clean inside and out, and put that composition into the intestines, stuffing them but without bursting them: to make sure they will not burst, for every two handswidths of intestine stuff one and leave the other empty. When they are tied at each end so the stuffing cannot come out, put them carefully one by one into warm water in such a way that the stuffing fills out everywhere, and let them boil for a quarter of an hour. Then take them out. If you want to keep them for more than a day, keep them covered with a white linen cloth in a place that is dry and away from air currents. When you want to use them, warm them up in a broth and then cook them again on a grill. They can also be washed in melted rendered fat so they will not dry out; alternatively they can be kept on a slice of pork fat. They are served hot with mustard or some other sauce in dishes.
If you want them with broth, as is done in Milan, when they have parboiled, take them out of their first broth and put them into another pot with a meat broth, along with a pig’s ears and snout – first semi-salted for a day, then cooked. To cook with all that put in some sage, getting a few tips of it. When those black puddings are cooked, serve them dressed with their broth, the snouts and ears. When they have cooled, they can also be sliced crosswise and sautéed in a pan in melted rendered fat and beaten spring onions. They are served hot with pepper and orange juice over them.
If you want to make black pudding (migliacci), follow the directions given in Recipes 67 and 68 of the book on pastry. With pig’s blood you can make all those dishes that are made with calf’s blood in Recipe 59. The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi, translated with commentary by Terence Scully, University of Toronto Press 2008, pp 190-191.
Recipe 67. To prepare a tourte of a domestic pig’s blood, popularly calld blood pudding. Get the blood immediately after the animal has been slaughtered and, still warm, put it through a strainer for hairs and any other dirt, stirring it so it does not coagulate. For every four pounds of blood, put in a pound and a half of grated creamy cheese, six ounces of grated dry cheese, one ounce of cinnamon, half an ounce of pepper, three-quarters of an ounce of nutmeg and cloves combined, a quarter-ounce of ground ginger, a pound of sugar, beaten mint, marjoram and other fine herbs, a little spring onion, beaten and sautéed, a pound of beef marrow or else that pig’s kidney-fat, without its membrane – the marrow or the fat cut up into lumps – one-third of a litre of milk, four beaten egg yolks, and four ounces of very clean raisins. Then have a tourte pan ready with a rather thick sheet of dough in it, without the twist; into it put the filling, which should be somewhat runny rather than thick. Bake it in an oven or braise it with a low heat. When it is almost done, give it a glazing of sugar and cinnamon. Serve it hot.
You can stuff intestines with that filling, cooking them the way blood sausages are cooked. You can also do it without a pie shell: into the pan put rendered fat or butter, heating it up hot before the filling is put in: that is done so it will not stick.
68. To prepare another tourte of pork blood, popularly called white blood pudding. Get four pounds of blood, strained as above, two pounds of goat’s or cow’s milk, four well beaten eggs, three ounces of fine flour, mint, marjoram, raisins and a pound of sugar. When everything is mixed together with the spices mentioned above, make a tourte with it in the above ways. With those two mixtures you can fill tartare (a sort of crustless or shellless tourte, the recipe for which is found at Recipe 86 in the pastry section) in the French style; serve them hot with sugar, cinnamon and rosewater over them. (Scappi, pp 468-469).
59. Several ways to cook the above calf’s blood. Although these preparations are not common, they can still be done in various ways, such as the lung is done. As soon as it is taken out of the animal, though, parboil it, unsalted, in a large pot with a lot of water – and put the blood into boiling water because if you put it in cold water, being heavier it will sink to the bootom and stick there. When parboiled, take it out, let it cool, and cut it into slices or into bits. Set those to sauté in a pan with spring onions. Serve it with salt and orange juice over it. If you want it differently, follow the directions I gave for the calf’s lung in Recipe 56. (Scappi, p 165)
[1575] “To Make Black Pudding. Take great oatmeal and lay it in milk to steep. Then take sheep’s blood and put to it, and take ox white and mince into it. Then take a few sweet herbs and two or three leek blades and chop tjem [them] very small. Then put into it the yolks of some eggs, and season it with cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, pepper and salt. And so fill them.” —The Good Housewife’s Jewel, Thomas Dawson, with an introduction by Maggie Black [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1996 (p. 44)
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