I feel I need a disclaimer for this blog. A way to set expectations. Something along the lines of:
The images used on this site are taken with an unexceptional camera, in unremarkable settings, by an undistinguished hand.
I am not one of those beautiful blogs. The ones with mid-recipe snaps or artfully shot plates of food embellished with a dried rose or linen place mat and vintage silver cutlery. They’re marvellous but they’re just not me. A bit like how I look at some women, with coiffured hair and manicured nails, in elegant dresses and delicate shoes. I admire them for their feminine aplomb, and for a fleeting moment wonder why I don’t do the same…and then I remember. Because I’m Me. And Me has never really worn make up. A 6ft Me doesn’t need heels (nor can Me find them – UK size nine. You try). Me does wear dresses, but Me is “big-boned” (or however else you can say wide-shouldered and long), so never quite cuts as elegant a figure…
In much the same way, this blog is not a refined, artful blog. It wouldn’t say no, but, in reality it isn’t. For the refined and artful bloggers out there who stumble across this page, don’t laugh too loud at what you are about to see.
Ok, so it doesn’t look appetising, but I can say, hand on my heart, it tasted amazing. 3 guesses at what you can see.
No?
Ok, it’s black pudding with roasted celeriac and butternut squash, with a miso, basil and spring onion dressing. Cumin and fennel seeds were what adorned the roasted vegetables. The fudgy squash and woody celeriac, combined with the dark, charcoal pudding and salty malted dressing worked a treat. A dollop of Greek yogurt on top provided the slightly sharp, cold contrast for those earth-like colours and flavours.
Y to the U to the M.
Black pudding is one of my most beloved foods. It upsets me greatly what facial contortions it provokes from the uninitiated, as do the little rounds of grizzly fatty nonsense served up in endless cafés around the country masquerading as black pudding. Just plain wrong. Black pudding should be rich, dark, subtly spiced and paté-like on the tongue.
As with anything related to food, there are umpteen different styles. There is the texture. Irish black pudding is very heavy on the barley or grain element which renders the final product like a coarse sausage, and, as I am not overly keen on sausages, the Irish one I do not go for.
Stornoway black pudding is, for want of better words, a gobful. It is almost impenetrably dark and dense, the crispy outer yielding way to a voluptuously soft centre. The spices fill your nose as it sizzles tenaciously in the pan, and in the mouth enliven the dense, Cimmerian-like taste.
Anything soft works a treat with this sooty wonder: poached or soft-boiled eggs, scallops, prawns, monkfish, purées or mashes (try apple or pear as well as vegetables), peas or beans, fresh or roasted figs, yogurt or curds and yielding roasted root vegetables all work marvellously.
At the same time, however, its robustness in texture and flavour mean that it can hold its own on the plate amongst other bold flavours: ginger, miso, whisky or port, mustard, wasabi, and horseradish to name but a few. Instead of fighting each other, in the right quantities, the pudding combined with another strong bedfellow result in an oratorio of taste.
It’s like haggis (another foodstuff lodged firmly in my heart). Somehow black pudding (and haggis) manages to scare people off before they’ve tasted it. My mother brought my brother and me up doggedly sticking to the mantra “try it before you say you don’t like it”, which, over the years, has meant I have experienced countless new foodstuffs, some good and some bad. The Eyebrow nearly shoots of the top of my head when I meet an ‘adult’ who looks at something and refuses to eat it not having tried it because somehow, perhaps by osmosis, they have divined that it won’t be to their liking. It is symbolic of an unquestioning character, intimidated or threatened by the act of experiencing. And what is life if not one over-sized and (potentially) technicolour experience..?
(It should be noted at this point that my mother’s mantra on the surface sounds fair, but even when we tried and disliked, she still refuted our pleas and wails. We were young and didn’t know any better, according to her. Then, in later life when we weren’t young and hopefully knew a bit better, we still didn’t know what we were talking about because…because she’s our mother and mothers know.)
For the record, my mantra is “try it before you say you don’t like it, and if you don’t like it remember that you might not have eaten the best example”.
Obviously there are times when you try something and you know it’s not for you. Tripe. Tripe and I will never be friends. Now liver, including paté, makes me liverish, but, when at the River Cottage for a dinner last winter, they served strips of liver, cooked rare, seasoned with sumac, and, it was almost delicious (in my opinion. The Boy inhaled them as liver is his thing).
But, there are other times when perhaps you may benefit from giving something a second chance if in an area or environment which knows how to handle said ‘thing’. I never went mad for meat until I moved to Umbria where a vegetable soup with pancetta is considered vegetarian. So I gaily went ahead with meat-eating and now am a bona fide carnivore. Lasagne too – I dislike béchamel as much as the Kardashians dislike being ignored. However, in Italy I discovered that lasagne wasn’t a bath of béchamel and melted cheese, and that the correct usage of béchamel is simply to moisten the pasta layers. Highly inoffensive I must say.
In short, if the idea of black pudding makes your shoulders shiver in dismay, and you haven’t tried it, please do. One mouthful won’t hurt. If you can get Stornoway black pudding, you’re on to the winner. Alternatively The Bury Black Pudding Company do a good 4-slice pack, and are in most major supermarkets. Slap it in a frying pan with a small dash of oil, let it sizzle away on both sides gently, and serve it with something you do like.
If you’ve tried black pudding and don’t like it, please, for me, try it again. Look out for the two names mentioned above in delicatessens, supermarkets or on menus, and give it one more go. And if you still don’t like it, perhaps I shall just have to demand you come to mine to try it because clearly you don’t know any better.
Like mother like daughter.
Oh god.
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