Text 11397, 80 rader
Skriven 2007-02-05 23:25:44 av DAVE SACERDOTE (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av MICHAEL LOO
Ärende: Blood Pud / Oysters
===========================
Ian's recent description of his pig butchering and the black
pudding put me in mind of my BIL's mother and her stories of
killing their pigs in rural Italy when she was growing up.

The people in her village would collect the blood of the pig in 
a stone basin which they would put over a slow fire and stir
continually as the blood heated, thickened, and cooked.  As the
blood cooked, they would add sugar, grated chocolate, lard, and 
ground hazlenuts to the bowl, and keep stirring until the 
mixture was cooked and thickened.  "It was like Nutella," she
told me.  When it was ready, they would take it off the heat
and keep it cool.  When the kids would come home from school,
they would take a piece of bread and spread it with the chocolate
mix, and it was a great treat.

"Today," she told me, "I would not eat that. The thought of eating
blood sickens me. But as a child and not knowing any better, we
all enjoyed it."

I tell you that story as a contrast to what Maryanne's Polish 
grandparents did with the blood from their pig when it was 
slaughtered.  They would collect the blood, mix it with salt, 
pepper, and some other spices, and buckwheat or barley, stuff
it into casings, and make kishka, the Eastern European blood 
sausage.

On Sunday mornings Maryanne and I bring our clothes to the 
laundromat and do a little shopping at the grocery next door
after the clothes are done. I've wanted to try kishka for a
while, and on this past Sunday, they happened to have a very 
small one, locally made by Martin Rosol Co. in New Britain, 
far a little over $2.00.  We took it home and I simmered it
for a time until it was done, and tried it out for breakfast.

It certainly is an acquired taste.  The livery taste of the
blood was covered with spices (mostly cinnamon and clove) and 
the texture was unpleasantly gummy and oatmeal-like.  The
sausage was loaded with buckwheat groats, and I could
understand why the old folks used to eat it for breakfast:
it was like eating Quaker Blood-Enhanced Hot Cereal.  I didn't
like it any better than I like almost any other hot cereal.

The dog enjoyed it, though - I gave him two or three smallish
pieces, for maybe a total of three ounces.

After giving the dog his treat, we had coffee and got ready to
head for Northampton and Amherst to do some shopping at the
Whole Foods there (the closest one to us.)  The dog obligingly
defecated before we left.

We did our shopping and came back out to the car to find that
the kishka had gone through Zim like apple snails go through
a pair of experimenting echosians.  The front passenger seat of
the car was covered in canine diarrhea.  (I discovered this
immediately after having eaten that lone oyster.)

DS> Damariscotta Oysters - fresh, wild-harvested oysters from the ocean 
DS> waters off Damariscotta, Maine.  99 cents each.  They only had a 
DS> couple left, so out of curiosity I bought just a single. 

ML> And why didn't you go back for the other? I'm ashamed of you.

No sooner had I finished cleaning the seats off, than the dog lost
control again, this time in the BACK seat, and the scrubbing 
routine was undertaken yet again.  By this time, with a crap-covered
dog still feeling the ill effects of kishka, I was in no mood for
more oysters!  We hadn't even gotten out of the parking lot before
the poor bastard was twitching again. This time I got him out and
off the side of the road, where he stumbled around "seeping"
fluids until he finally finished emptying himself.  I gave him a 
bath when we got home, and the poor boy, exhausted, slept the
afternoon and night away.

And THAT is why I didn't go back for the other.


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Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, 
minutus carborata descendum pantorum
 * Origin: Doc's Place BBS Fido Since 1991 docsplace.tzo.com (1:123/140)