The question ‘What is Blood Sausage’ is quite literally answered within the question. It is a sausage made from animal blood and other ingredients such as spices, fats, and grains. It is commonly stuffed into a large animal sausage casing, and then boiled. It is then commonly fried before eating, usually in slices and is common in many countries around the world, though it is becoming less popular.
What is Blood Sausage
What is Blood Sausage Made of
The primary ingredient that blood sausage is made of is animal blood. Most commonly it is pigs blood, but depending on the country that it comes from it can also be made from cow, yak, goat, sheep, duck, and even chicken.
What else is Blood Sausage Made Out of
The ingredients of blood sausage vary from country to country, but as well as blood, there are bulking agents such as fats, nuts, bread, vegetables, flours, meat scraps and grains such as barley, oatmeal, rice. Other ingredients are usually their to enhance the flavor such as onions, raisins, dried fruits, garlic, sugar, and herbs and spices such as black pepper, chile pepper, allspice, thyme, cumin, cinnamon, ginger and salt.
Uncooked Blood Sausage
What is Black Pudding
Black Pudding or black sausage is the name for blood sausage in England, Scotland, Ireland and other parts of the Commonwealth, with the name ‘Pudding’ commonly used to describe types of sausage, probably derived from an Anglicised pronunciation of the French word boudin, meaning sausage.
Blood Sausage throughout the ages
Though blood has been used in many countries around the world in various dishes, it was more common for the blood to be turned into sausages since it was the first product from a slaughtered animal as it’s throat was cut, it was easier to store for longer if it was immediately mixed with the other ingredients, stuffed into sausage casings before it quickly deteriorated and congealed. The first mention of blood sausage in literature was in Homer’s Odyssey around 800 B.C. where he wrote
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 get it quickly roasted.
In today’s sanitized world of food, especially in the Western World it is less common than years ago and a rather large majority of people will never had heard of blood sausage, let alone tasted it, even though most countries have their own version of it. In the past most cultures that each meat, used every part of the animal, including the blood, which when added with other ingredients such as grains, spices, and fat, produced a tasty and nutritious food. Today rather than used as a food stuff, it is more common to find it used as a feed ingredient for livestock and pets as well as a fertilizer.
Examples for blood sausage around the world
In other countries the name for blood sausage in their own language usually translate literally to blood sausage for example blodpølse (Denmark and Norway), blodkorv (Sweden), blutwurst (Germany), bloedworst (Netherlands), verivorst (Estonia), chouriço de sangue (Portugal), boudin noir (France), and longganisang dugo (Philipines)
United Kingdom
Known as black pudding, it is made from pigs blood, oats, barley, suet, onion, allspice, mixed spice, salt and pepper. It is commonly sliced, fried and eaten at breakfast, with scallops as an appetizer, or battered and deep fried and served with chips (fries) as take out. One of the popular black puddings in the UK, comes from the Stornoway on the Scottish island of Lewis. It also has been granted Protected Geographical Indicator of Origin (PGI) status.
British Battered Black Pudding
Latin America
Known as Morcilla (other spelling include morcela), it can be usually found to be bulked with rice and eaten with barbecues, fried during the holidays or eaten in sandwiches. In Colombia it can be found with ingredients such as peas, rice, cilantro (coriander), and in Uruguay, sweet versions contain, pine nuts, chocolate, orange peels and raisins.
Morcilla
Denmark
Known as blodpølse it is only usually found just before Christmas and contains cinnamon, raisins, brown sugar and rye flour. It is fried and served with syrup, apples and more cinnamon.
Danish Blodpølse fried with Apples
France
Known as boudin noir, common ingredients include apples, potatoes, and cream. The French Foreign Legion’s anthem, Le Boudin, is named after this type of blood sausage.
Boudin Noir
Poland
Known as Kiska, it is commonly made from beef blood. It can easily be found in Polish Delis in the US and tastes very similar to UK black pudding for any UK expats that need a taste of home.
Polish Kiska Blood Sausage
Sweden
Known as Blodpudding and contains milk, beer, treacle and rye flour.
Swedish Blodpudding
What does blood sausage taste like
It depends on what is in the blood sausage, but generally it is has a savoury taste, slightly sweet, meaty with a subtle metallic aftertaste. Overall it is delicious, not matter what people’s first impression of eating blood may be. Go on and try it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised and want to taste it again. Look at these kids and how much they enjoy it, even after finding out what it is.
Vegetarian Black Pudding
And finally the biggest oxymoron ever, is that the Real Lancashire Black Pudding Company has made a Vegan and vegetarian blood sausage. What?
