How's your Spring shaping up?

[Frances]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

Black pudding? Would that be like christmas pudding at all? The one you make a year in advance and then steam for half a day before pouring brandy over it and lighting it?

If it is, I love the stuff, but the Swiss part of my family thinks I'm mad .

That would work well in a WFO, come to think of it. I'll post my grandma's secret recipe if I ever make one again...

Jim, your baking classes sound really great! I wish I could take part in one of them. I thought I knew how to bake bread, but the better my bread gets, the more I realise how much I still have to learn.

And talking of eating weeds, has anyone eaten fat hen before? Chenopodium album - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
My mom told me about this one, it grows as a crop weed in the fields round here - everywhere in fact except in my garden... it tastes like spinache only better!

[Inishta]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

Frances..........black pudding/morcilla is basically a blood sausage. Most Europeans have a version. The morcilla I have had differs in that it has rice in it. If you look on the forum of Sausagemakers you should find all you need to know. They also sell a mix for it...........minus the blood............

[Xabia Jim]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

Yeah, a very common morcilla variety here is made with onion. Every butcher here sells some. They don't waste much!

[Frances]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

ooops. Well, when I'm wrong I'm very definately wrong...

[CanuckJim]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

George et al,

Black pudding is really blood pudding, where, I think, pig blood or sometimes rabbit blood is used in the mix as a binder and flavouring agent. It's fairly common in former British colonies like Canada. If you do the B&B route in the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish countryside, it's a staple for the traditional breakfast "fry." Like sausage of any kind, though, the quality and taste vary enormously. If it's overcooked, it's tough as a boot sole. A good one, properly cooked, isn't bad at all, though it's a bit of an acquired taste for me, and I'm of Irish background.

Jim

[gjbingham]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

Sounds perfectly nasty to me! I'm sure its fine if cooked correctly, but just the description alone has my eyes watering and stomach churning in a bad way. Somebody's going to have to sneak it onto my plate someday to get me to eat it!

[CanuckJim]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

George,

Now, now. Pass the Pepto Bismol . If you think about it, a medium rare steak has blood in it, too . Don't tell me you don't eat steak. Masai, I think, warriors live on the stuff.

Jim

[egalecki]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

George,

If you think about it, a medium rare steak has blood in it, too . Don't tell me you don't eat steak.
Jim

Yeah, but the flavors are totally different.

I remember my ex's Polish grandma telling me all about the wonderful "chocolate soup" she'd make me. It turned out to be duck blood soup.

I also had a very old cookbook from her which had a recipe for lamb that went "first kill a lamb and then put it in a burlap sack and bury it in the garden for 3 days." In it's defense, it was a very detailed cookbook for those times- a lot of them were very sketchy on "how to's". But I nearly died laughing when I read that recipe.

[Alfredo]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

On the weekend a review of Culinary Landmarks: A Bibliography of Canadian Cookbooks, 1825-1949 appeared in our national newspaper (globeandmail.com: You are what you read). The review contained this delightful paragraph:

My grandmother was Scottish, a woman who boiled vegetables for safety rather than flavour and roasted meat until it was asphalt. Cooking was a time-consuming chore for her, like cleaning the eaves or taking down the storm windows. She distrusted spices, which she thought were subversive and used by foreigners to disguise rather than enhance. She relied on salt and lard and heat, and, early in her marriage, a Scottish cookbook that was so dour I don't think it had a name. There was a recipe for Black Pudding (“Clean and wash one sheep's stomach inside and out. Mix in 8 oz. of suet, 8 oz. of oatmeal, one pint sheep's blood…”). There were recipes for cormorant – eventually to become a protected species – and for Sheep's Head Broth (“Using a red hot poker, rub over the sheep's head until a nice brown colour, remove ears, horns and burn off any remaining wool. Split head with an axe. Remove brains and soak overnight. Add barley.”) Most of these recipes remained in the old country, but their spirit infused her cooking – the idea that food was an issue of survival rather than pleasure.

-with apologies to any Scots among us here. On second thought, if you are of Scottish lineage and a member of this site, you probably agree with the reviewer.

CanuckJim will be pleased to observe that there is a section of the review dedicated to reminiscences of Jello salads, with marshmallows

[gjbingham]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

Alfredo! Incredibly funny quote. I've got tears running down my cheeks from laughing so hard, but I'm left with bittersweet memories of my dear departed parents who cooked vegetables only by boiling in water, and that were not deemed suitable for consumption until completely and totally devoid of any consistency or taste. Plopped onto your plate in a big wet splat, and don't even think about leaving your seat until you've enjoyed every last bit of their wonderful goodness. Mmmmmm!

Thanks for the memories!

[Xabia Jim]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

Sounds perfectly nasty to me! I'm sure its fine if cooked correctly, but just the description alone has my eyes watering and stomach churning in a bad way. Somebody's going to have to sneak it onto my plate someday to get me to eat it!

The morcilla we buy is from the cheese/meat vendor in the market. It's hanging overhead in those pictures. I refrigerate it and it's eaten cold in slices. Also with mustard in a sandwich. Others are cooked on the BBQ for a mixed grill dinner.


I've always said that you can eat anything if you know how to cook it. I remember a quote of my dad about "hanging meat until it drops to the larder floor" Choice vs necessity gives perspective. Those famous serrano hams of Spain are brined and hung....I don't beleive they are ever cooked.

[gjbingham]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

I think you're right about the hams. They look just like prosciutto when you cut them thin.

I agree with your dad too XJ. Sometimes knowing what you're eating ruins the opportunity to give the food an unbiased taste.

[Xabia Jim]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

Why I'm not in Michigan yet...

"Well, it is not exactly good boating on the Great Lakes yet.....there has been rough going on northern Lake Michigan as the commercial shipping season has re-commenced for the year. In the last several days, two 1,000 foot ships have come into port with damaged hulls from ramming through heavy ice conditions on northern Lake Michigan. Both are laid up for repairs. I read this morning of a 634 foot laker which was stuck in the ice in Lake Michigan. A 767 foot ship trying to free it inadvertently rammed it causing damaged to both ships. Ah, for the good old days of global warming."

The saga continues..."Well, the marine forecast into tonight for Lake Superior is for 50+ knot winds, 20 foot seas, and 2 feet of new snow in Duluth, MN. (On top of the snow which came earlier in the week.) We'll probably will not take the boat out tonight. But it is mid-April already! Where is global warming when we need it?"

20 foot seas on 'the big lake they call Gitchee Gumee'....

[CanuckJim]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

XJ,

I've been up to Lake Superior several times, and I've never seen it calm. I worked with a highly experienced canoeist on several of his technique books. The man was a master. He drowned in Lake Superior, canoeing alone, but very close to shore.

Jim

[gjbingham]

Re: How's your Spring shaping up?

That forcast makes me shiver from 2500 miles away. Wind swell is so nasty/choppy, even on the big lakes. It makes for great surfing waves in the oceans when the storms are a thousand or two miles away. I can't imagine going out on Superior in less than perfect conditions.

XJ - I thought you were in Spain right now. Sounds more like Michigan. I'd be interested to hear how you time your commings and goings.