Harvey's - as I've said before in the earlier "What's Cooking With Dive" posts, is the militant wing of Norwich's organic real meat movement. The messages about factory/agrochemical/intensive "meat-substitute" on their delivery vans scare the bejeebers out of pedestrians.
Their lovely shop is a combination of organic butchers, militant bookshop and local organic wholefood outlet and is one of the finest places to stand on this planet.
They have a daily menu board letting you know exactly which local farm each of the meats on display comes from and photos on the noticeboard of the happy creatures grazing in rich pasture, rooting in woodland and not being kept in concrete pens under fluorescent lights, fed ground up bits of their predecessors deemed unfit for humans and injected with so many antibiotic and growth hormone chemicals that they are the same size in six weeks as a real animal is in six months. Little wonder the present generation is obese, allergic to everything and their infections immune to antibiotics.
Er … Sorry. I didn't mean to go off on one.
What I'm actually trying to say here is that organic black pudding (my lycanthrope-lite substitute for human blood) is yummy.
Black pudding (aka blood pudding) is basically blood, cooked with fat (the Germans sometimes put suet, oatmeal or even bread in there, but they're German).
When I was a kid, my grandparents kept a house-pig on their farm (that's it, above; a beautiful old fifteenth century higgledy-piggledy house that I wish was still in the family, with lil' ol' me posing on the gate) as did most country families.Come the onset of winter, the pig would be slaughtered to provide meat through 'til spring. And the blood that was drained off didn't get wasted. Goodness, no. Boiled up with diced belly fat and stirred until it congeals, then stuffed inside an intestine to set, it makes one of the most delicious delicacies known to man (this is gonna gross out the veggies even more than when I ate the whalemeat).
So anyhoo … That atavistic werewolf howl hit hard yesterday and steered me to Harvey's so that this morning I could enjoy a rare treat: a ludicrously unhealthy fried breakfast.Here's what I had:
3 organic, free range eggs,
3 rashers of local organic bacon,
About an inch and a half of black pudding, cut into three thick slices,
Half a dozen organic kidneys,
A side-plate-sized flat field mushroom,
A handful of button mushrooms,
4 tomatoes out of the garden.
Recipe:
Fry that lot up and eat it.
Serves 3 people, 2 Americans, or one exceedingly greedy werewolf.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
I won't have to eat again for a week.
28 comments:
How typically British! But can I say eeww? :D
Hey, did you get the spareribs?
PS
You were such a cute little boy! Love the hair! Where did it all go?
You may indeed say "eeww", Joy; you are not lycanthropic.
I got fatty pork belly instead of spare ribs (I know you love finger-eating but I hate getting messy fingers; I even eat crisps with chopsticks to save myself getting all greasy). The flavour and fattiness will be the same, though.
If anyone's wondering what we're on about, I'll be making sinigang more like Joy's mom does for a post later (sinigang redux); including gabi (yay)!
And HA! to the hair comment.
Hee hee.
My hair finds my face so ugly it runs away from it and has been successfully escaping for years.
OK, blood pudding aside, this breakfast sounds delightful. I do believe, though, you snobby Englishman, that it would comfortably serve 3 if not 4 Americans. Not 2! Poo.
Hee hee hee, Robyn. An American would probably pour maple syrup over the whole thing and serve it with "fries" (ewwww).
Great photo of you on the gate in the amazing bucolic setting. As for breakfast, I'll just have one egg, one rasher of bacon (not sure what a rasher is, but I'm hoping it means slice), and raw on the side a few button mushrooms and 2 tomatoes. I will, however, take a bite off your plate of the fried mix of everything, just to prove I'm not afraid to try new things.
A rasher is indeed a slice, Katie; one more for the Transatlantic Dictionary.
And hoorah for you for being brave enough to risk a mouthful of death by artery-clogging black pudding.
Gotta pass on the kidneys and black pudding, but the rest sounds yummy. Breakfast/brunch is one of my favorite meals. Most days, though, I just have oatmeal and fruit.
Adorable photo. Like the house, too. BTW - when I moved to Texas, the realtor asked if I wanted to see "older" properties. How old is older? More than three years!
OK - begin the rant...
I must confess, Lulu, that I only have a cooked breakfast a couple of times a year. Normally it's a half and half mix of organic meusli and organic oatmeal with skimmed milk and whatever needs using up in the fruit bowl and vegetable rack combined in the juicer.
The farmhouse was lovely. So bendy that the beds needed propping up six inches from one side to the other.
I won't rant about "historic" US properties because I have a particular love both for your Art Deco buildings (especially the Chrysler Building and most of LA) and for those gloriously tacky post-war chrome and neon, angular, concrete and brightly-coloured plastic monstrosities. Wonderful things!
You don't have to eat spareribs with your hands! I use spoon and fork when eating sinigang. And besides, what makes my mom's recipe really delish is the flavour we get from the ribs. Oh well, and it won't be as fatty as well :D
Joy, I am making it as we speak. It is bubbling away and filling the whole house with its yummy aroma. I did actually add some pork bones to help the flavour and there is a LOT of fat in there.
My mouth is watering so much. It's getting toward the time I need to fish out the gabi and mash them.
Yum!
I much prefer a continental breakfast (if I really have to have a hot breakfast) over the English fry up. Give me croissants, butter, jam, scrambled eggs (French style) and herbal tea and I'm happy. Or, I could have veggie bacon and sunny side up with French toasts - and yes, a dose of syrup please!
You avoid salt like the plague and yet don't run away from fat??? How enigmatic!
Mmmmmm … Croissants.
No butter or jam, though (you and your sweet tooth).
You can keep the syrup, too.
Fat is where the flavour is in meat, Joy.
Too much salt will kill me (a stupid affliction to have in this age where salt is added to everything, and which really does involve me having to walk out of a lot of restaurants); too much fat simply makes me fat. Big difference.
I know salt is bad, that's why I stay away from it as well. But fat is bad for your heart, and your cholesterol count. We don't want you to get ill because of it :)
Do I want to live forever? Or do I want a freezer full of sinigang broth?
I'm making it in my biggest stewpot so I'll have at least six pints of broth left after I've dished everything up.
Ooooooooooooooooo …
Well, the guilt is settling in now. Bing had a church gig this morning so Liv and I snuck off to McDonald's for egg mcmuffins for breakfast. (Bing would be annoyed beyond reason if she knew.)
And I admit that hearing about blood pudding sort of made that greasy egg and canadian bacon in my stomach roil around....
Bing would have every right to be annoyed, Maria!
Hee hee.
Mc.Donalds? Sheesh!
You love Liv; how can you let her put that chemical crap in her mouth? Do you not have a good organic butcher in town?
Etc. … Rant … etc …
Ok, now I'm confused. If you're not concerned about living forever, why mind the salt? Or will taking it send you straight to pushing daisies? :D
By the way, did I warn you about gabi? It tends to produce a funny smell once cooked, but soon disappears anyway. It's still gorgeous!
Salt is as good as jumping in front of a train for me, Joy.
And you warned me to peel the gabi with gloves on, but not about the smell. Not that it matters as I'm anosmic so I wouldn't have noticed.
It was delicious and I have a freezer full of sinigang broth, too.
As you couldn't smell anything??? Well I guess that's a good thing. :D The smell doesn't linger anyway. And the broth is great!
Maple syrup indeed. Just because the poor kid in To Kill Mockingbird did that doesn't mean we all do it.
The blood pudding is a little scary looking, but I will try anything once. I might eat just a tiny bite, but I will have an open mind.
You were such a cutie with the blond hair! I could pinch your cheeks.
Nice photo of you when you were a kid.
Joy: It certainly is yummy.
Robyn: But you DO!
Neetzy: Well done for being brave. It is actually quite delicious and doesn't taste (or feel) anything like its constituent parts.
And … er … which cheeks?
Alice: Thank you. I was cute then. Unfortunately I grew out of it.
My cholestrol just went up 6 points reading that but i must admit - yum - except the blood pudding - would have to eat it without knowing what it was i think!!!
You were soooo cute!!!
I still am, Jules. Hee hee.
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