back to article Butcher breaks out of own freezer using black pudding

A butcher channelled the power of Ecky-Thump to escape being locked in his freezer when he saved his skin by using black pudding. Seventy-year-old Chris McCabe, of Totnes, Devon, England, found himself stuck when the wind blew the door of his outdoor freezer shut. He then discovered that the internal emergency release button …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Black pudding saved my live [bacon]"

    Come on Editor, it's not Friday yet.

    1. Mark 85

      It's Thursday. " Close enough for government work" (as the saying goes).

  2. TRT Silver badge

    Alternative approach...

    Use some English mustard to melt the ice.

  3. EddieD

    Black pudding

    One of those things you don't realise are so good or useful until you really need it.

  4. Pen-y-gors

    Ee, bah, eck etc

    Makes you proud to be British.

    Of course, no evidence in the article about origin of said life-saver. Might have been Lancashire, but excellent black pudding comes from many parts of the British Isles.

    Foreign rubbish like Blutwurst obviously wouldn't have worked.

    (Ooooh, thinking of yummy offal, only two weeks to haggis-blowout day!)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

      I applaud your dedication to local cuisine, but do not mock the smoked Grützwurst mit Rosinen with a side of applce sauce and mashed potatoes, that's fighting words. (Or maybe do, just shows that you'll leave more for me.) Dankeschön, bitteschön.

      1. Pen-y-gors

        Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

        @AC

        "do not mock the smoked Grützwurst mit Rosinen with a side of applce sauce and mashed potatoes, that's fighting words"

        Sounds delicious when served hot on a plate. (with gravy?) - but I doubt whether it's up to full martial combat and battering-ram standard.

        1. FozzyBear
          Gimp

          Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

          whether it's up to full martial combat and battering-ram standard.

          Read that as Marital Combat and Battering Ram Standard. That got me thinking what kind of sex dungeon have you got ?

          1. Mark 85

            Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

            That got me thinking what kind of sex dungeon have you got ?

            I don't think we really want to find out... Now where's the mind bleach?

      2. Roo
        Windows

        Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

        "do not mock the smoked Grützwurst"

        Quite frankly this Black Pudding enthusiast is salivating rather than contemplating mockery...

        However I might be tempted indulge in a bit of mockery if I honestly believed I could convince someone to give up their Grutzwurst - allowing me to swoop in and scoff it before they realised their mistake. :)

      3. Montreal Sean

        Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

        Anonymous coward,

        Would you happen to have trouble sleeping because you keep hearing a train outside your window?

        :)

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

        HM Sheridan can't be real butcher. They advertise gluten free black pudding and haggis. Catering to the post-modern psychosomatic illness crowd[0] is a sure way to let standards slip.

        That, and the fact that black pudding has been around a lot longer than HM Sheridan (or indeed Aberdeenshire!) kinda suggests someone's telling porkies.

        [0] NOTE! I'm not poo-pooing Celiac (Coeliac) disease! I know a couple people who are affected. It's a very real, and very serious problem for them. This is a very small percentage of the general public, thankfully. The people I am talking about are the never diagnosed idiots who are convinced that gluten is evil, and the cause of all their digestive issues, because they saw it on TV ... all the while subsisting primarily on fast so-called "food".

        1. Roo
          Windows

          Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

          "They advertise gluten free black pudding and haggis. Catering to the post-modern psychosomatic illness crowd[0] is a sure way to let standards slip."

          Sir, I think you are being somewhat churlish. Another way of looking at it is that the Butcher is making the joys of Black Pudding & Haggis available to all. :)

        2. Oh Homer
          Headmaster

          Re: "psychosomatic illness"

          I.e. hypochondria. Or actually, given the transmission vector of this particular disorder, it'd be more appropriate to diagnose it as mass hysteria.

          As for gluten-free haggis and black pudding, neither recipe is supposed to contain wheat anyway, so the fact that explicitly "gluten-free" versions are available is a bit comical.

          The reason for the gluten-ified bastardisation of this or any other type of sausage is usually the unwarranted addition of rusk, a cheap filler material used to "bump" any sort of stuffing mix, solely for the purpose of ripping off customers.

          This was such a huge problem in the past, most typically with pork links sausages, that the government actually had to intervene and force sausage producers to meet or exceed certain minimum proportions of the primary ingredient before they could legally sell it as "meat".

          As far as I can tell, the last bastion of legacy "mostly rusk not-really-sausages" in the UK exists only in Northern Ireland, which sells what they refer to as "white pudding", a dish that bears no resemblance whatsoever to its namesake on the mainland, but is really just a poor-man's "pork" sausage. They manage to get away with this simply because they refer to it neither as pork nor sausage, although that's really what it is, albeit in its absolute minimal form.

          However, bumping processed "meat" in general with rusk (and many other things - primarily water) is sadly very common, albeit heavily regulated to ensure that consumers receive something that is mostly meat.

          I believe that Stornoway Black Pudding is widely recognised as the best in the UK, and contains no wheat at all as per the traditional recipe, not because the producers are pandering to hypochondriacs.

          1. EddieD

            Re: "psychosomatic illness"

            As the son of a Lancashire lass living in Scotland the origin of the best black pudding is often the subject of intense debate.

            I don't think it will ever be settled, but I'm willing to keep sampling more black pudding to see if a resolution is possible.

          2. David O'Rourke

            Re: "psychosomatic illness"

            Actually, both delicacies traditionally contain oatmeal, and oats contain gluten.

            1. Pompous Git Silver badge

              Re: "psychosomatic illness"

              "Actually, both delicacies traditionally contain oatmeal, and oats contain gluten."
              You'll need to provide a reference for that. Oatmeal is gluten-free. Oats contain avenin, a protein similar to gluten. Research shows that most people with coeliac disease can safely eat avenin.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: "psychosomatic illness"

                Unless they are milled somewhere that doesn't also handle wheat, barley or rye, then oats have the potential to contain gluten. This is why gluten free oats exist.

                And as for hypochondria, go felch* yourself anyone who feels that there aren't real diseases that require GF diets and its all made up.

                * see todays Android vuln post.

                1. Oh Homer
                  Childcatcher

                  Re: "milled somewhere that doesn't also handle wheat"

                  Wheat-infected oatmeal is not typical in Scotland, nor I assume in the rest of the UK. It mostly seems to be common in the US, where one very seldom finds natural, unadulterated food products, since nearly everything over there is heavily processed, genetically engineered and saturated with chemicals. I believe the most common contaminant is an abomination called HFCS - banned in the EU and elsewhere, a synthetic and sickly-sweet syrup made from genetically engineered corn, which is added to pretty much everything, including supposedly savoury dishes.

                  Over here I think you'd need to buy "instant oats" type products to get oatmeal that contained anything other than pure oats, and generally speaking such things are never used as ingredients for other dishes, such as haggis or black pudding. Plus no true Scotsman would ever ... etc.

                  1. jake Silver badge

                    Re: "milled somewhere that doesn't also handle wheat"

                    "in the US, where one very seldom finds natural, unadulterated food products, since nearly everything over there is heavily processed, genetically engineered and saturated with chemicals."

                    BWAHAHAHAHAHH!!!!

                    You truly are deluded, aren't you? Ta for the laugh! Best I've had in ages.

                    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

                      Re: "milled somewhere that doesn't also handle wheat"

                      @ jake

                      Oh Homer may be overstating the case, but not by much from what I'm told. My best friend was from the US and when he returned his sister prepared the family a Thanksgiving feast "from scratch". Almost everything was processed, even the potatoes. He said he couldn't wait to return to Tasmania and have a real feast at my place. The chicken came from the hen-house, the vegetables from the garden...

                      When the American artist Alan Gussow visited us he remarked on the rarity of food such as we served up in the US. Vermont market gardener Eliot Coleman remarked that small-scale market gardens like his are extremely rare. I frequently browse the Internet looking for recipe ideas. A very high proportion of those posted by Merkins include proprietary processed foods, even such simple things as a vinaigrette.

              2. David O'Rourke

                Re: "psychosomatic illness"

                The Wikipedia page on gluten cites three papers that talk about the toxicity of some cultivars of oats for patients with coeliac disease. I would hope that a GF black pudding contained only suitable oats.

                1. Pompous Git Silver badge

                  Re: "psychosomatic illness"

                  "I would hope that a GF black pudding contained only suitable oats."

                  It's a bit more complicated than that.

                  Coeliac disease and oats: a systematic review

        3. Pompous Git Silver badge

          Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

          "HM Sheridan can't be real butcher. They advertise gluten free black pudding and haggis. Catering to the post-modern psychosomatic illness crowd[0] is a sure way to let standards slip."
          Black pudding is a blend of onions, pork fat, oatmeal, flavourings and blood, so by definition is gluten free. For there to be gluten in black pud, there must be wheat, barley, or rye.

          1. Lars Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

            @Pompous Git

            "wheat, barley, or rye".

            According to on the Wiki, "mustamakkara" black sausage what we have in Finland.

            "Mustamakkara (literally black sausage) is a type of Finnish blood sausage traditionally eaten with lingonberry jam. It is nowadays available in many stores across Finland, but is held in the position of local delicacy and speciality of Tampere. Mustamakkara is at its best when bought and eaten fresh at market stalls, to which it is delivered hot in styrofoam boxes from the factories directly after baking. A typical practice of reheating the sausage is to just fry it in a pan.

            Mustamakkara is known to have been eaten as early as in the 17th century and was generally cooked over a small fire, in a hot cauldron or in an oven. Mustamakkara is made by mixing pork, pig blood, crushed rye and flour, "

            But as always people use what they have available, be it oatmeal, wheat, barley, or rye if they do it themselves, which they don't these days.

            And then there is "Verilätty" in Finish, "Blodplättar" in Swedish, according to the Wikipedia used only also in Norway which cannot be true as it's such a quick way of using the blood.

            Of course "modern" people don't like to eat blood, which in a way, is a bit silly, as you will always eat blood too if you eat meat, no matter how you kill the animal.

            On blood pancakes:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blodpl%C3%A4ttar

            Blodplättar, or blood pancakes (veriohukainen, verilätty or verilettu in Finnish), are a dish served in Finland, Sweden and Norway made of whipped blood and other ingredients. It is similar to black pudding, but is thinner and crispier.

            Blodplättar may be fried in a frying pan. The pancakes are occasionally served with pork or reindeer meat.

            In Swedish, the word may also be used to refer to blood platelets."

            What else, my deity how much oat porridge one had to eat as a child, and now it would probably be all for the good to day too.

            1. Pompous Git Silver badge

              Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

              @ Lars

              I believe we were talking about black pudding, a specific blood sausage popular in Northern England, rather than blood sausage in general. I can recall a particularly fine dish I had at a restaurant in Hobart and the sausage was made with hare's blood, the dish French. My sister-in-law is Swedish, though born in Norway and yes, she incorporates ingredients in her blood sausage that would not be countenanced by black pudding aficionados.

        4. Arthur the cat Silver badge

          Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

          They advertise gluten free black pudding and haggis. Catering to the post-modern psychosomatic illness crowd[0] is a sure way to let standards slip.

          Although the "gluten free because I'm sensitive" crowd can be intensely annoying, they have done genuine coeliacs a great favour. When I first met my wife 30+ years ago the only gluten free bakery and pasta products she could get tasted disgusting and the pasta turned into wall paper paste unless you cooked it just right. Mostly she just did without. Nowadays the "free from" aisle in the supermarket has stuff that's near enough in taste to genuine gluten containing products that I'm prepared to eat it rather than put on two pots for pasta like I used to, and she can have a decent sarnie when she feels like it.

        5. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

          Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

          I think there's a market for gluten-free water.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

            Don't laugh too hard. This stuff is all the rage among the "high tech" crowd in San Francisco. It sells for about $6 per 375ml bottle. In San Francisco, where almost all taps have water from Hetch Hetchy reservoir. For those who don't know, Hetch Hetchy is the only major above ground water source in the USofA that is allowed to be delivered to consumers without treatment ... it's that pure and uncontaminated. I guess there really is a sucker born every minute. Time to capitalize ...

            Next year, I'm planning on selling gluten free, dairy free, non-GMO, unfiltered, organically grown xmas trees with no tree nuts. After a little quiet test marketing this last Marketing Season, I'm fairly certain the morons will snap them up at eight to ten times the cost of "regular" xmas trees ...

          2. Pompous Git Silver badge

            Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

            "I think there's a market for gluten-free water."
            But not as big as the market for gluten. In SE Asia there are many vegetarians who eat a meat substitute called seitan. Seitan is made from gluten extracted from wheat flour.

            What Is Seitan? All About the Popular "Wheat Meat"

            Amusingly, my vegan nephew and his Merkin wife won't eat seitan "because it's too much like real meat". I often wonder how many vegetarians are aware that the mock chicken/beef/pork they're eating is actually gluten.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

              Seitan looks remarkably like the stuff Sainsburys sells as vegetarian chicken style protein cubes. They're easy to use and they keep, and I had the pleasure of seeing my celiac boss's face when he read the packet.

    3. Lars Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Ee, bah, eck etc

      The Black is blood and used around the world from the beginning of time.

      The Wiki on this mentions:

      "Black pudding is also eaten along the North Sea coastal regions of Fryslan and Drente (both Netherlands), in Lower Saxony from Ostfriesland to Bremen and Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein mostly Nordfriesland, France, Slovenia, Italy, Finland, Luxembourg, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Ireland, Sweden, Estonia, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Latvia and Lithuania.[clarification needed]".

      And I would add the rest of the world too without feeling like a trump.

      And the butcher and his saviour (not the original?) is here;

      http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-42648624

      PS. stay proud, I doubt you ever had a choice, most of us are similar in that respect. And the alternative is silly.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sure other meat would have worked if he had given it a good chop.

  6. kryptonaut

    The blackest black pudding...

    Even t'white bits were black.

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. batfink

    1.5Kg?

    That's some pudding.

    Is that why they say "Once you've had black, you'll never go back"?

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: 1.5Kg?

      At roughly 5" per link, and 5 links per pound, that's only 16 or 17 links. I can easily triple that with a single natural casing. With artificial casings (not in MY larder!) the sky is the limit. If you don't twist them into links, you get a single, massive sausage. Diameter depends on the casing, large or small intestine, hog, sheep or cow, how old they are, how hydrated they are, etc.

      A "Tom Thumb" (sausage stuffed into a hog's appendix) is usually well over 1.5 kilos. It's not the traditional casing for black pudding, but any port in a storm ...

    2. Pen-y-gors

      Re: 1.5Kg?

      It's a fairly standard size for a 'slicing' pudding - like what is usually served with a fry-up.

      Of course there are the smaller ones for cooking whole or, in the case of Scotland, deep-frying in batter.

      Aaah, happy memories, black pudding / white pudding / red pudding / haggis pudding plus chips - perfect after a night on the beer. The Scots really understand the philosophy of the chippie - I regularly used one that deep-fried the meat pies.

      1. Spacedinvader

        Re: 1.5Kg?

        There's another way to cook a meat pie??

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tastes like chicken...

    So this butcher legs it out to the freezer, chop chop, then discovers there's more at steak this time! But before he can meat his fate as part of his own stock, black pudding saves his *ahem* bacon. Hot dog! I knew there was a use for that stuff.

    Heh, bet he'll get some ribbing for this...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Tastes like chicken...

      You've overcooked it with your use of puns there - cutlet it out at once

      1. tony72

        Re: Tastes like chicken...

        There seems to be either a pun-hater, or possibly a vegan, down-voting you guys. Whichever it is, if I find him, I'm not going to mince my words.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Tastes like chicken...

          The missteak is to over ham it.

        2. jake Silver badge

          Re: Tastes like chicken...

          I suspect it's not a pun-hater or Vegan doing the downvoting. It's someone much worse. It's probably someone who doesn't know what Bootnotes is. BURN THE HERETIC!

          1. Pen-y-gors

            Re: Tastes like chicken...

            Downvoting? Look at the downvotes on today's Brexit thread - I reckon someone's been writing a bot.

            1. jake Silver badge

              Re: Tastes like chicken...

              The Brexit thread downvoting is the usual religious idiocy in Brexit threads. No bot needed.

    2. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

      Re: Tastes like chicken...

      Stop hamming it up

    3. Michael Thibault

      Re: Tastes like chicken...

      Big John, that was just offal!

  10. Suricou Raven

    This is a serious problem.

    The emergency release button, inside of a freezer, is disabled by prolonged exposure to freezing temperatures?

    That's the type of life-threatening design flaw which should have the manufacturer fitting replacement buttons to every freezer in the field, at their own expense, before the freezer owners start a class action suit.

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