here in England, "Black Pudding" is a standard element of a hot breakfast meal (see first photo above). it's served the same way as, say, links of sausage might be served: with eggs, toast, bacon - whatever - on a plate, usually presented in round slices cut from a much larger "sausage".
it may be surprising, for those of you who've read my older posts, that i actually have no problem with the fact that Black Pudding is neither "pudding" in the American sense of the word, NOR in the British sense of the word (in Britain a "pudding" is a generic term for dessert, like you'd see at the top of a list of desserts available on a restaurant menu)... rather, my issue is with the ingredient list, which i have included above in the second photo. if you can't see the photo clearly, the ingredient list is:
Water, Cooked Pork Rind, Oatmeal, Pearl Barley, Dried Blood, Rusk, Flour, Pork Fat, Onion, Salt, Mixed Herbs, Pepper, and Yeast Extract.
there's only one ingredient that i didn't recognize, and that was rusk. i looked it up, and "rusk" is basically just hard, dry biscuit ground up. it's commonly used as a binding agent in sausages. of course i didn't have to look up "dried blood" to understand that item, but it led me to wonder:
what is Dried Blood bringing to the flavor party? why did it have to be dried before being added? also, isn't dried blood really more of a scab? and if blood generally tastes so good, why isn't it a key ingredient in more of our traditional foods?
after the ingredient list, the product label screams (in all caps) that the product CONTAINS GLUTEN. i would think that perhaps they may also want to put the "dried blood" part in all caps - but that's just me.
i bought Black Pudding for my British significant other because he loves the stuff - possibly even more than the bacon or egg part of breakfast. when i cooked the Black Pudding slices in the skillet, something just smelled wrong. it didn't smell like i was cooking food at all... and definitely not like anything suitable for human consumption. it was kinda like playing "Let's-throw-this-random-object-in-the-pan-and-see-what-heat-does-to-it."
far more disturbing was when my husband said: "Ahh, that smells SO good!"
i'll be the first to say "To each his own," but i definitely felt a little wave of nausea when he tried to give me a thank-you kiss after eating it.
p.s.
kudos to the first person who gets my title reference ;)