KEY POINTS:
Meat is not particularly necessary for either good health or survival but humans have been eating it for centuries, so is it morally correct and civilised to eat meat?
Badly produced meat is the result of avarice, carelessness and disinterest. Well produced meat is the result of responsibility, respect and enjoyment.
There is a moral issue but I think it revolves more around the raising, treatment and killing of animals. Animals kill other animals for food - very few die of depression or old age. We kill farmed animals for food and it is the way we look after them while they are alive, that is very important.
The best way you or I can exert our power to change cruel animal rearing processes is to not buy this meat. If we continue buying it, we are condoning the stressful, uncomfortable and in some cases, painful lives of the animals whose flesh we put in our mouths.
One way to eat good meat is to buy organic, another way is to use good butchers and specialised gourmet suppliers.
Their meat is the result of best farming practices and extensive rearing for which they don't need antibiotics, growth hormones, steroids and additive-laced feeds.
If it costs more to buy and that's a problem, then buy less.
Buying cheap, bad meat is faulty economy. OK so it might be a drag to go out of your way but you can turn it into an exciting adventure, your mouth drooling at the thought of a big, juicy, free range rack of pork that actually tastes as sweet as it should.
Properly grown pork, beef, lamb and poultry tastes better than conventional meat. Friends at my dinner parties often gasp over the tastiness and texture of the meat I cook - it is not my ability as a cook; it's the quality of the meat.
Black pudding is probably the oldest kind of sausage. It is principally made from pig, cow or sheep blood, oatmeal or cracked barley, fat, salt and onions.
The French put breadcrumbs and cream in theirs and the Spanish, sherry soaked currants and sweet shallots. In the Caribbean, they make little boudin noirs that are soft, very spicy and poached.
Black pudding is already cooked, the most you are ever doing is heating it up so don't fry it to death - it should be moist inside.
I grew up eating black pudding fried in thick rounds with bread and butter and mutton roasts, chops and stews. To me this combination of "rack on black", an idea I found in a Lancashire butchery, is a knockout. It's very subtle and not as heavy as it sounds.
Now please don't be squeamish about eating blood sausage - what do you think meat is made of?
- Detours, HoS
