There once was a girl from DC
Whose hunger just wouldn’t recede
As her stomach growled
She finally howled,
“A fry-up is just what I need!”
So dreaming of sasuage and bacon
She looked for a pub that would make ‘em
And just down the road
Was her own pot of gold
Ri Ra, where they wouldn’t just fake ‘em!
Seriously, though, I’m starving and the only thing that wil truly satisfy is a greasy, horrible-for-me-but-oh-so-delicious fry-up, courtesy of the lovely people in the UK/Ireland. Lucky for me, there are a few pubs in walking distance of my house, and while they will surely be packed with revellers, I will be joining them, with K, for some beers and hopefully some black pudding after work.
I spent three months living in London, studying, in 2005 when I was still in college. Not that it took those three months to learn to love it — I was pretty much smitten since my parents took my sister and I back in 1998, on a family vacation — but during that time I became an absolute black pudding fanatic.
Black pudding is a kinder name for “blood sausage,” which is what the dark delicious stuff really is. It’s a fairly normal sausage — pork or beef-based, though in my experience it’s usually pork — that is cooked and cooked and cooked with the blood of the animal until it is thick enough to congeal when it’s cooled. The resulting mixture, when cooked, turns nearly black… henche “black pudding.” It’s gross in concept, I suppose, except that it’s extremely tasty — savory, salty, rich and delicious, like sausage but better. If I could find it in a supermarket here in the states, I would never stop eating it. Being rich and decadent, of course, it’s not particularly good for you, but I don’t really care.
Black pudding is one of several things in a proper fry-up. You get two pieces (patties) of black pudding, two to three links of breakfast sausage, two to four rashers of bacon (different than American bacon, British bacon is usually taken from the back and termed “rashers”; there’s a little bit of fat and mostly lean meat, though bacon cut from the belly can be obtained and is termed “streaky bacon”), one or two eggs (most commonly fried, and even more commonly sunny-side-up), one or two fried tomato halves, a small handful of sauteed whole mushrooms, two slices of toast, and a generous spoonful of Heinz Baked Beans(accept no substitutes!). You wash it down with tea (usually English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast), with cream and sugar. It looks like that amazing picture above.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find one before my stomach gets so hungry it starts to eat itself.
Eat, drink, and be merry! Happy St. Patty’s day!
1 Comment
March 19, 2009 at 10:20 am
oooh I love Ri Ra!