Black pudding, Morcilla, Boudin Noir, Blutwurst whatever you wish to call them, they have been part of our food heritage for thousands of years. Yet today here in the UK they are made from a dried blood powder mix, this being produced from indoor reared pigs from the Netherlands, Belgium and Scandinavia.
OK, you may not have known, but now you do, what are you going to do about it ?
I can tell you what I do, I choose to only eat black pudding made from real blood and blood only from locally free range pigs. Also as a Judge I no longer award products using this dried blood mix.
I have friends who commercially produce black puddings for a living, they were forced into this type of production with dried blood powder during the foot & mouth era. But that is behind us now and we need to encourage them to go back to using real blood before we lose this artinsal craft.
Jay Rayner the food critic and journalist has mentioned about this food plight several times including giving it some air time on the BBC's television programme "The One Show", now when he mentions a plight like this, you know we have to listen at the very least. However it is up to us to decide wether we continue to eat these puddings with the knowledge of what goes inside them.
A campaign sounds a bit strong I know, but to encourage the chefs and food businesses to use artisan producers of black pudding, we'll list those producers who still use real blood here on this blog post.
So if you know of such a producer, then let us know to include them on this undermentioned list.
List of producers who use real blood in their black puddings are:
You know a good start up business for someone is to procure all the blood from an abottoir and sell & deliver it to individual black pudding producers.
1.
http://www.jackmccarthy.ie/shop/
2.
www.dukeshillham.co.uk/
3.
http://www.ludlowfoodcentre.co.uk (John the head butcher explains that dried blood is sometimes used when real blood is out of stock, he will happily advise you at your time of enquiry or purchase if requested.) Thank you for being so honest John.
4.
http://foragers.net/
5.
http://www.partridgefarmtiverton.com/
6.
http://www.laverstokepark.co.uk/
7.
http://www.pigandco.com/
8.
http://www.thebutcheryltd.com/
9.
www.dorsetcharcuterie.co.uk
10.
http://www.thewildfoodlarder.co.uk/
11.
http://www.fruitpigcompany.com/ (some of the best I've ever tasted)
12.
www.rustypig.co.uk
13. Lidl supermarket - Hazelmeade Farm (brand)
