pudding
came bouncing down the chimney to Darby and Joan in the familiar old
nursery tale. Dealing with this eminently plebeian subject, a writer in
the County Gentleman tells how he ascertained that the real
old-fashioned black pudding still obtains in many parts of the country
; one such locality to wit being the remote Dorsetshire village in
which he chanced to be sojourning. "It happened one day,"' says he,
"that I entered the cottage of a poor woman at the identical moment
when the manufacture of black puddings was proceeding ; and, resisting
the natural instinct to fly from the somewhat terrible scene, I sat
down, and made myself acquainted with the process as conducted by my
cottage friend. First, she lined the basins in which she proposed to
boil the mixture, with strips of membranous fat (the caul) taken from
the internal economy of the pig*. In a large bowl stood the said
mixture, from which these basins were to be filled, such mixture
consisting mainly of the pure blood of the pig, to which she had added
a little milk, a teacupful of bread-crumbs, and a seasoning of thyme,
onions, (sage being also included, unless disliked), pepper, salt, and
a dash of all-spice. The whole mass appeared to be in quite a liquid
condition ; and when a layer of fat had been put to float on the top,
with a piece of clean paper over all, the whole basin was tied up in a
cloth, and plunged into a great saucepan full of boiling water, whilst
the spectator looked on in amazement, expecting to see the contents of
each basin rapidly escape through the cloth, and mingle with the
surrounding water. So rapid, however, was the process of coagulation
that scarcely any appreciable quantity was lost; and I was told that
the puddings would come forth with the consistency of batter puddings,
at the end of the
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