Vegetarians look away.
If you’d have asked me 30 years ago if I would have popped a morsel of boudin noir (or black pudding as we’d call it in England) in my mouth as pictured above, I’d have pratically passed out at the thought.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved black pudding back then. Fried as part of a full English breakfast. I adored it. Cooked.
But RAW, like that. No thank you. But you see it isn’t raw. I didn’t know that. Not until we made our own boudin noir a few years ago when we lived in Anjou.
I remember coming to France in my early 20’s with Nigel number 1. His brother lived with (and is now married to) a very bohemian French lady called Sandra that loved to cook and loved to eat.
We all went off to the market to buy provisions for dinner. Fresh thick cream from the farm, small artichokes to make a classic dish called ‘artichauts barigoule’ (a Provence speciality that has changed much over the years but her version included lots of lardons and garlic and olive oil, slowly cooked with artichokes) and finally, some boudin noir.
We went home and had a coffee, chatting about what we’d bought and how lovely it all was (very typical, French people can talk forever about food). Sandra unpacked the shopping and as she unpacked the boudin noir she couldn’t resist – she reached into the drawer for a small knife, cut off a chunk and in it went.
I was horrified. Disgusting I thought. How could she do that. It’s raw. I felt myself slightly retching at the idea of trying it when she offered.
How ignorant was I?
Well very it turns out. You see when you buy boudin noir, it’s already been cooked. You can eat it just as it you is, you can cut it into rings and fry them quickly to get them crispy or you can heat up a whole one and eat it with mashed potato and apple purée (not keen on the whole one tbh).
Anyway – a few years ago we ‘shared a pig’ with our next door neighbours and a butcher came in to help us prepare all the regional delicacies that you’d typically find in the Loire valley.
We made terrines and patés, rillettes, rillons and rillauds (pulled pork, belly pork cubes, long strips of belly pork), andouillette (maybe another post to explain this one when you’ve had your breakfast and have a strong stomach), and, last but not least, boudin noir.
Yes, boudin noir is made from blood. Fresh blood. Actually in the UK few people that make black pudding use fresh blood, most use dried, but here in France it’s still fresh blood.
Take one bucket of fresh blood and mix it with lots of slowly cooked onions, spices, some slow cooked pork and some fat. Plenty of seasoning (I struggled a bit at that point – checking if the seasoning was correct), pour into natural casing, tie off and then pop into boiling water for 20 minutes. Allow to cool and there you go. It’s COOKED.
I know you have to get over the mental hurdle that it’s made from blood but then also consider how wonderful it is to use everything from an animal. Nothing goes to waste. Every little bit makes something delicious and nourishing.
We sat in the garden that day on long trestle tables in the sunshine eating our boudin noir, still warm from the pot with bottles of rustic red wine. It was a memorable day that started at 6am and finished late afternoon.
Boudin noir can be absolutely amazing and it can be pretty dull. The boudin in the picture came from the tradtional charcuterie in Vernou sur Brenne, the next village down from us. Everyone had been telling us their produce was fantastic and it is. Run by two rather frumpy ladies who take their work very seriously. Everything we bought from them was fabulous.
Do you dare try a morcel of boudin noir when you’re next here?
