How English black pudding is made in Bury

• Bury, Lancashire, England is know for being the capital of black pudding.
• The sausage, made of cereals and blood, is a delicacy here, eaten as a takeaway food with sauce or in a bread roll.
• Richard Morris from the Bury Black Pudding Company takes us through the making process step by step.
• His grandfather was a butcher, and it is his black pudding recipe that the company uses today.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Claudia Romeo: We're in Bury, Lancashire, England, and we're about to visit a black pudding company. Black pudding is that one item in an English breakfast plate that you either love or hate. Why? Because it has blood in it. But it is also that one item that has the most history, especially here in Lancashire, which is known for being the county that brought it to fame. So it's time to see how it's made. Let's go! In Bury, we met with Richard Morris, production director at the Bury Black Pudding Company. His grandfather was a butcher, and it is his black pudding recipe that the company uses today.

Richard Morris: People have this idea of black pudding as, it's all bits of animals and stuff. There's no meat in a black pudding. There's blood in a black pudding, but there's no meat. It's cereal-based.

Claudia: Black pudding starts with a dry mix of pig blood, seasoning, rusk, and oatmeal. And when we say dry, we mean this. Seriously? [laughs]

Richard: Yeah. You'd never guess. It's actually a dried blood. So, if you smell that, what would you...?

Claudia: Yeah, it just smells like herbs. Yeah, it smells like the seasoning.

Richard: Yeah, the seasoning.

Claudia: There's no blood, any blood smell at all.

Richard: No, it's a nice aroma. And we use dried blood because it's developed to a certain parameter, so it's very safe, food safe.

Claudia: What is the difference with liquid blood?

Richard: It's much more consistent. Using fresh blood, that can change with different animals, what they've been fed on. So this is very consistent product, which fits what we do. We also have rusk then, which is breadcrumbed flour, used heavily in manufacture of sausage. That's what gives sausage a fluffy texture.

Claudia: Oh, I see.

Richard: And we also have oatmeal as well. So, oatmeal that's been ground, so it's a fine oatmeal. And that, again, if you added water to that, it would go a bit stiffer. So the two together make a nice texture.

Claudia: Oh, yeah, 'cause they complement each other.

Richard: Yeah, exactly. I think heavily in England, especially north of England, anything that's got lumps in it, you gotta bite two or three times. They call it gristle round here. [Claudia laughs] Chorizo and that sort of sausage are quite firm, and that's more European. Around here, especially north of England, it needs to be soft and very palatable.

Claudia: OK, so that is the taste.

Richard: Yeah, just regional things.

Claudia: Regional taste. Another two ingredients are barley and fat. Unlike the rusk, oatmeal, and blood, they will be cooked before being added to the dry mix.

Richard: The barley itself comes in loose like this. When we cook it up in these, we leave room for it. It will swell up to about three, four times the size.

Claudia: Oh, wow. Looks like a Christmas sock.

Richard: [laughs] Yeah, yeah.

Claudia: It does!

Richard: This is pork fat, so if you think of a pork chop, where the meat is, the white piece of fat there, this comes in from Denmark, where they have fatter pigs. In England, the pig, the fat's like this. So we don't have fat pigs. So this white piece of fat, it comes in, in strips, which we have here.

Claudia: Oh, wow. I didn't even notice that. It looks like textile, you know?

Richard: That's it, yeah. So, we got a strip there.

Claudia: Oh, no, it does look like meat, actually.

Richard: And then this is then diced. So, this is the high quality. There is no lean meat on this at all. So we're just after the fat.

Claudia: And this one is gonna be cooked, yeah?

Richard: Yeah, we dice it on a machine. We weigh it into the stocking net again. So we, from here...

Claudia: Ooh, another sock.

Richard: We take it up, from there, and we pop it into that.

Claudia: And this one is gonna shrink, or?

Richard: Yes, it will just shrink slightly as it starts to give the moisture out of it, and the flavor. The barley expands. This just reduces slightly, yeah.

Claudia: And one net is for one batch? Richard: Into a mix, there's four nets go into a mix. Yeah. I'm giving you my recipe right now. [laughs]

Claudia: OK, wow. Might have to write this down then. [laughs]

Richard: Yeah. No, no, don't do that.

Claudia: Barley and fat are cooked for one hour. Meanwhile, onion and water are mixed in this giant container. When ready, they will be joined by the dry mix, containing blood, oatmeal, and rusk.

Richard: And then there's a motor on here. Basically, it will just, it's like when you whisk something up, but this does it 4,500 revs. So it just whisks it up really quick, and basically we rehydrate the product, so you've got, like, a gravy consistency, where the dry blood's in it, the seasoning, the rusk, the oatmeal, the flour, the onions, and you've got your base mix there.

Claudia: OK. So, wait, this one is the barley that you were showing me earlier.

Richard: Yeah.

Claudia: Wow, and it's grown so much in size, you were right.

Richard: Yeah, this is the barley you saw previously. If I pick one up, you'll see exactly the same, from there. See how it's swollen up? Now, that's cooked perfectly.

Claudia: So, this one is about, it was, like, 2 1/2 kilos, and now it is?

Richard: Yeah, it's about 10 kilos now.

Claudia: Wow.

Richard: We weight check it, so it's right. If that was overcooked, it'd be 11, 12 kilos. We wouldn't use that.

Claudia: So Christmas sock before Christmas, and Christmas sock after.

Richard: Exactly, yeah, exactly. Wow, this is like a gym test.

Claudia: I know, I can see you with a couple

Richard: [laughing] And I'm shaking.

Claudia: And you can do, like, a lunge thing, no?

Richard: Yeah.

Claudia: So, I see something else in here, though. There's not just barley.

Richard: Well, this is fat, diced fat, that we showed you earlier. Again, this has been cooked up, if you notice it's not swollen up, it's just cooked out, and it actually loses the bits. We only use, in our products, only 3% fat, and those are the actual small, white pieces you see in the end product. If you don't want the fat, don't eat the small pieces, and you're on 0% fat.

Claudia: So you can really skip it.

Richard: Yeah, exactly.

Claudia: Barley and fat are then added into the mix. Fat is mixed gently, not at high shear, to not break the dices. The mix is now ready. It's so brown!

Richard: Yes, like chocolate!

Claudia: Yeah, it does look like chocolate mousse, to be honest.

Richard: Tastes a bit different to chocolate, but, yeah, it's not bright red or anything like that, people associate with blood. It's a cereal mix with a blood base, so it's a chocolaty, velvety sort of touch, yeah.

Claudia: But the color comes from the dried blood?

Richard: Yeah, it does, yeah.

Claudia: This is what gives it its color.

Richard: Yeah, that's the main part of it.

Claudia: The mix is stuffed in a natural casing made of beef intestine. That is super quick!

Richard: So, that's the intestine that's been filled out with the mix. This is a portioning-control machine, like you'd see with sausage fillers. And what it's actually doing, it's spinning the product. So it's doing that so quick, if you see from there.

Claudia: So that you can portion it.

Richard: And that's one portion that we then link into a black pudding.

Claudia: There you go, nice. And it's always this shape, right? Richard: It's always this shape.

Claudia: You can't have it as just a straight sausage.

Richard: And you can see with the linking, we tie that together with string there, and then there, and then there. And we use the string to tie it up. So, one's just been done here.

Claudia: Let's see. Oh, so you have a nice group, yeah.

Richard: See these, they're tied up, all the same, same weight, right through. And they're ready for cooking.

Claudia: It's nice. Nice black color, no?

Richard: Yeah. You will see now when it goes in, it's a grayish look, and then it goes black after cooking.

Claudia: After cooking, all right.

Richard: Hence the name, black pudding. So, that's the very traditional process that we still teach that to this day. A 100-year-old process, maybe longer. It's tied together. You touch it, it's smooth.

Claudia: Wow, yeah, that is very smooth. Oh, honestly, there is no grains at all. It's just like when you brush your hands through your hair, something like that.

Richard: Yeah, yeah, it's silky smooth.

Claudia: Super smooth. That is. What about the casing, are you supposed to eat it?

Richard: The casing can be eaten. It is edible. It's natural. Personally, I don't. I take it off, 'cause it's quite thick. It's probably the hardest to chew in the product. I like a nice soft, palatable product.

Claudia: So you can easily just peel it off if you want.

Richard: You can easily peel it off, yeah. It's user friendly. [both laugh]

Claudia: Then the black puddings are cooked in water for about one and a half hours. Oh, so they go in one by one?

Richard: Yeah, yeah. If you put them in in one go, basically, that has a core temperature. If you put them individual, you have to get in the water around it. So we have three or four minutes allowed in the cooking time to get the water round the product. The pudding, it's called a pudding because it's cooked immersed in water. Hence the name.

Claudia: They're black now.

Richard: Yeah, and as the air gets to them, as they cool off, they go blacker and blacker. Again, down to a temperature of about 40 degrees in about 10 minutes. And then we put them onto a rack to cool. Two or three hours later, we're ready to pack them. So, these are the black puddings that have been cooled. We'll just take them off the rack here, put them on the table. And then the staff here will cut the black puddings, cut the string off, and so they come in here, so they're in single black puddings.

Claudia: Can I try?

Richard: Yeah, yeah, just lift it up.

Claudia: Where do you lift it up? Just from -

Richard: You're best doing it with both hands, like that. Lift it.

Claudia: Oh, it has the texture of, like, a date.

Richard: [laughing] Yeah.

Claudia: Wow! [laughing] OK, OK.

Richard: There you go.

Claudia: Oh, wow. The color has changed quite a bit though.

Richard: Yeah, so they've gone slightly browner. They were very black to begin with, but it's just the cooling process.

Claudia: Just sort of like my grandma's chocolate salami.

Richard: Yeah. [laughing]

Claudia: Wow, honestly, I can't really get my head around the fact that's it's not chocolate.

Richard: I know, I know.

Claudia: So, how do locals enjoy their black puddings? We took a trip to the Bury Black Pudding Company stall at Bury Market to find out. So, here at Bury Market, you can actually just get black pudding as a takeaway food and have it?

Debbie Pierce: Yeah, you have been able to for years and years. You can go away with a nice hot black pudding, with a bit of mustard on, or tomato sauce, brown sauce. But you can either have it just on its own, or you can take it away on a bap, bread roll.

Claudia: Oh, OK, nice. So, how long have you been here, the Bury Market?

Debbie: I've been here since I was 12 years old, so for 38 years. I came as a Saturday girl working for a farmer who had the stall. My mum works on the stall, my nephews work on the stall. So, some of the stalls opposite, you know, they've been here for years, so it's like a family.

Claudia: Wow. What does black pudding mean to Bury, especially? Because it is used all over England, but here specifically, there is quite a strong black pudding, like, feeling and culture, no?

Debbie: Yeah, the story goes that the black pudding originated in Europe, and the monks came over to England and settled in Bury. So it's always traditionally been known as the capital of black pudding.

Claudia: Oh, the seasoning's so good. It adds flavor, but it doesn't overpower the rest. Texture as well, nice and creamy. I wouldn't ever say that there's blood in here. If I were to look at this, I would probably think it's just chocolate mousse.

Debbie: [laughing] Yeah, chocolate cake.

Claudia: Or just a chocolate sausage, yeah.

Debbie: Often when we're sampling, some of the children think it's chocolate cake.

Claudia: Yeah.