A Taste for Blood
By: Daniel Goldman
Tags: Culture, Taboo, Blood, Food, Sustainability

A Taste for Blood

Don’t let the idea get in the way of trying a delicious meal.

Swedish black pudding with various sides, by Dcastor. (Public Domain)

As a foodie and an anthropologist, it’s always interesting to see what foods are commonly eaten by some cultures, and absolutely taboo in others. While there are plenty of options to make people squeamish, from horse meat to bugs, perhaps none elicits a greater disgust response fro those who are not accustomed to consuming it than blood,

I’ll admit that my experience in the matter is still more limited than I would like. But I have had a number of different blood sausages. I’m not sure when I started eating them. It certainly wasn’t eaten by anyone in the family when I was growing up. But I’ve pretty much always liked trying new foods, and eventually I came to love blood sausage.

But why the hell should anyone eat blood anyway? While I do think that animal husbandry has a place in agriculture, raising an animal is a lot of work, and animals are generally more expensive to raise than plants. So using as much of the animal as possible is important. Unfortunately, due cultural taboos, and also the historical risk of consuming it, the consumption of blood is avoided in much of America.

Blood goes bad, fast, so it has to be used right away. It’s really for this reason that cultural prohibitions, and slaughtering methods that resulted in maximum draining of the blood, evolved in numerous traditional cultures, including Judaism. Still, blood has nutritional value, and it shouldn’t be wasted. Moreover, blood can be a delicious addition to a meal. Blood sausages are probably the most familiar preparations for most people. There are also a number of soups that are thickened with blood.

Blood Sausages

The bulk of this article is going to focus on blood sausage, because there are just so many different varieties. Asia, Europe, and the Americas all have their different blood sausages. Of course, blood isn’t the only ingredient. Curdled blood is just gelatinous. It wouldn’t make for a very good sausage, and so various fillers — usually grains — are added to the mix. Pieces of fat are also sometimes mixed in. While the list of blood sausage preparations is fairly extensive, I’m going to start my list with my two favourite kinds: black pudding and sundae.

Europeans seem to call a lot of things “pudding.” And it might be confusing to Americans. Black pudding is common in England, Ireland, and other areas of Europe. The typical grain used in this preparation is oatmeal, or barley. I’m pretty sure that the versions that I’ve had used barley, which I first tried at an Irish restaurant in New Paltz, that unfortunately has since closed down. If you’ve never had a chance to try a full Irish breakfast, you definitely should. Aside from it being quite filling, the full Irish breakfast has black pudding as well as white pudding — a sausage made primarily from fat and grain. It might not sound all that appetizing, but it really is. Grilled up with crispy edges, both the black and white pudding work well with the eggs, and the accompaniment of all the other typical ingredients, such as bacon, tomatoes, and baked beans.

South Korean sundae stuffed with dangmyeon (cellophane noodles)

As much as I like black pudding, my all time favourite blood sausage is Korean sundae. It’s difficult for me to find it around here, but if I take a trip over to New Jersey, there’s a Korean supermarket called H Mart that sells it.

Sundae tends to be a lot milder than other blood sausages, and the filler is fairly distinct. Instead of just mixing grain in with the blood, sundae uses dangmyeon, or cellophane noodles, which are made from starch and water. They’re soft, and have a nice bite to them due to their elasticity, and are as far as I’m concerned, the perfect filler for blood sausage. While often served alone, or with a mix of salt and pepper, they can also be made into a stew. Traditionally, the sausage casing itself is a natural casing, but there’s also a version made by stuffing the sausage mix into squid, grilling it, and slicing it. I’ve never tried it, but it’s definitely close to the top of my list of must try foods.

While these two are my favourites, there are tons of other types of blood sausage. There’s Polish kiszka, which usually has a fairly blood forward taste in my experience and Spanish morcillas, which generally use rice as the starchy filler. All around the world you can find different recipes for blood sausage, using different fillers, spices, and cooking methods, giving their own unique spin on the food.

Blood Stew

Okay, it might not sound all that appetizing, but stews and soups are also a great way to get your blood fix. Full transparency: I haven’t had as much experience with blood soups as I would like. They’re even harder to find on menus than blood sausage. However, blood is a versatile ingredient and can add a lot of flavor to stews, while also acting as a thickener.

Czernina, a Polish blood soup usually made with duck or goose blood is a good way to go. While blood is added to the mix, the base of the soup is generally a simple poultry stock.

Or, if you happen to have sundae on hand, you can make sundae guk, which is generally made from an ox bone soup base (seolleongtang) and includes various seasonings, and sometimes other organ meats. I’ll admit that it doesn’t look too appealing. The seolleongtang base kind of gives it this milky white color. It doesn’t fit American aesthetics. That’s for sure. But you know what they say, “you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

Fresh Blood

Okay so blood sausage, especially a mild one like sundae, is probably not too hard for people to accept. Blood soups and stews? That’s probably a bit more challenging. But there are some more extreme options for eating blood. Since blood does spoil quickly, it should be drained from the animal as fast as possible, and since traditionally refrigeration wasn’t available, it was often consumed almost immediately after the animal was slaughtered.

I’m fine with blood sausage, and even cooked blood soup in some cases. But I won’t pretend that consuming a raw, or slightly coagulated, blood fresh from the slaughter is something that I’ve tried or would have an easy time getting down. I’d also be cautious about raw blood preparations because of the possibility of food born illness. However, it is a traditional way of utilizing every part of the animal, and considering how expensive it is to raise an animal, the more ways to utilize every piece of it, the better.

Waste Not, Want Not

Have you tried blood sausage or some other preparation? If not, try it. Really. You might like it. Obviously make sure that you’re getting your meal from some place reputable. Blood does spoil easily, so a random street vendor might not be the best option, as much as I love street food. See if a local Irish pub has or can get black pudding. See if there’s an H Mart in your area and pick up some sundae. Maybe your butcher has some blood sausage available. If you don’t like it, then you don’t like it, but you won’t know if you’ve never tried it.

Finally, looking at the issue from the viewpoint of sustainability, far too much blood goes down the drain each year. Slaughter houses waste so much blood that it’s revolting. While avoiding meat consumption all together is certainly one option, and I’m not opposed to vegetarianism, eating some meat is fine, so long as we don’t waste any part of these animals, including their blood.