Black Pudding?

July 2 ...

There are many travel hazards that books don’t warn you about. Language traps in particular – especially those that happen when you are travelling in a country with the same language as your own, for example. Eating out traps that have nothing to do with food poisoning, for another example:

The confusion of ‘biscuits’ appearing on the breakfast menu instead of at afternoon tea.

Mayonnaise instead of tomato sauce (ketchup) with your chips (fries).

Getting your salad in the wrong place in the order of things.

I came across a really scary one recently (in my reading), and in the interests of preserving good international relationships, I want to warn any Britishers or Australians travelling to the U.S of A of this example.

If you see ‘black pudding’ on the menu, and fancy some with your breakfast – you might be shocked. You might not get a sausage made of pigs blood - all dark and savoury and salty-spicy – you might get an entirely different sort of pudding. The sort that in your home country you might expect to come at the end of a satisfying dinner. An entirely delicious dish in its own right, but not one to cosy up beside your fried eggs (which ever way up or over you order them.)

Black Pudding.
One quart of blueberries, one pint of water, one cupful of sugar, a five-cent baker's loaf, butter. Stew the berries, sugar and water together. Cut the bread in thin slices, and butter these. Put a layer of the bread in a deep dish, and cover it with some of the hot berries. Continue this until all the bread and fruit is used, and set away to cool. The pudding should be perfectly cold when served. Serve with cream and sugar.
Any other small berries can be used instead of blueberries.
[Miss Parloa’s New Cookbook..1880]

I love the sound of this pudding.

On second review, it might make a pretty good breakfast after all. Just not beside the eggs, please.

Tomorrow’s Story.

Travel Language No. 2

Quotation for the Day.

Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work.