It’s often part of an “Ulster Fry,” and it’s delicious! Fried up with bacon, sausages, eggs, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes if you like, and even wheaten bread slices also fried up in the bacon fat. Some say such a breakfast is a “Heart Attack On A Plate,” but me, me Da, his Da – my Granda and the Granda’s before them ate this stuff regularly. Mind you, it wasn’t usually for breakfast – perhaps their breakfast of steel cut oats – big steaming bowls of it (my Granda also laced his with copious amounts of ginger along with goat’s milk).

Being originally from Cape Breton, C. is quite familiar with white and black pudding – where it often still has the Gaelic name of ‘Marag‘.  She doesn’t like the black pudding though, but she can eat a plateful of the white along with her sausages and eggs. It’s a perfect addition to a camp meal – hearty and tasty with oatmeal, onion and suet being the primary ingredients.  The black pudding which has an almost cake like texture and a rich taste with hints of chocolate has the addition of pig’s blood (sometime lamb’s blood). I know the thought of that might turn some off, but it’s been a part of Scot/Irish cooking for generations as well as in The America’s and other parts of the world.

Neither C. or I have had Marag or white/black pudding in a long time, so when I saw some in the freezer of a British tuck shop, I grabbed it. This morning, I cooked it up band was rewarded very well by C. for serving up one of her most favorite foods in the world.  She didn’t care much for the black puddin’ but I ate mine up and have some left over for another morning.

Mmmmmm! Nothing like cooking outdoors – and an Ulster Fry is one of the best and tastiest meals to make in cast iron frying pans!

8 Responses to “Do You Know What This Is?”