SCANDINAVIA - COOKING BLOOD

You know that warm, bubbly, oozing red stuff that squirts out of the slit throat of an animal while it dies a slow and painful death? Swedes make soups, puddings, and pancakes with it, and it’s totally legit. Fair enough that the practice of eating blood is held over from the days of starving peasants having to use every part of their recently-slaughtered animal, but—and running the risk of sounding like a backwards-ass Christian—where I grew up in Sacramento, California, and in most other places, the act of eating blood is looked upon as a total sin. To quote the bible, Genesis 9:3: “Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.” In other words: it is FUCKING GROSS to pig out on blood.

But Swedes, however, seem to run no risk of spending time in hell for ingesting it. Whenever I say, “Eeeeeeeeew” from seeing the big, bloody boogers they try to pass off as food in the supermarkets, my Swedish friend Kristoffer gets all defensive and starts talking about how blood contains tons of iron and vitamins and that students eat it with noodles because it’s so cheap and nutritious. To prove a point, I decided to force him to actually cook the stuff. Like from start to finish, from slitting the throat to digesting it. To which his reaction was (of course), “No no nooo, I can’t slit the throat of a living thing!” He did agree to the cowardly Plan B: Buy the blood from people who had the balls to put their action where their mouth is, and cook it according to traditional Swedish recipes. 

Blood Pudding (“Blodpudding”)
Ingredients: ½ liter of pig blood, 50 g of butter, a beer, 3 ½ dl of flour, 2 tbsp of sugar, ½ tbsp of salt and pepper.  

First, we had to get our hands on some blood. Most Swedish butchers have stockpiles of it. You just order it from the man at the counter and he yells to his colleague, “One bucket of blood!”

When you make blood pudding you must start by straining the blood to remove any pieces of flesh floating around in it.  

Then you mix all the ingredients together (including beer), pour it into a baking pan and then let it cook in the oven for 90 to 120 minutes at 200 ° C.

Take it out of the oven, let it cool, and cut the pudding into thin slices, then throw it in the frying pan and fry it up!

The traditional way of eating "blodpudding" is with some lingonberry jam and snaps.

Fried blood patties—Mmmmmm!

Blood Pancakes (“Blodplättar”)
Ingredients: 400 ml of pork blood, 400 ml of milk, 400 ml of flour, 2 tbsp of dark molasses, 1 tsp of salt, a pinch of white pepper and salt.

Be careful though, they fry real fast. It’s time to flip when the blood starts to bubble.  

Kristoffer loves to wake up to a beautiful woman serving him blood pancakes in bed. How romantic.  

Black Soup (“Svartsoppa”)

Last on our list of traditional Swedish blood entrees is black soup. It’s the easiest blood dish to cook. All you have to do is boil some veal broth and then stir in the strained blood and other fine ingredients like spices, booze, and fruit. If the blood is a bit frozen, push it through a pasta strainer with a fork.  

After the soup has simmered for some time and thickened up, pour it into a fancy bowl and garnish it up. Now doesn’t that look nice?

DAVID MCCLYMONDS

Comments

[olga]

cooking with semen and now cooking with blood? what's next? smegma frosting?

[sensational]

Blodplättar sounds like a norwegian black metal band

[kinfolk]

black soup looks like chocolate pudding!! yummo!

[Seth]

I was grossed out until I read the ingredients. It actually doesn't sound that bad!

[realdeal]

if someone tricked me into eating of this shit id be furious

[mezzy]

is that an apple or peach being served with the black soup>?

[Curious]

Where the hell can you buy liters of pig blood?

[clothepin]

i bet that smells like shit

[CUNTCRUSHER]

FIRST!!

[ef]

blerugherghhhhh

[vanessa]

lets make it international: how bout bloodpancakes with french cheese, for lunch tomorrow?!

[dodus]

>sensational i was thinking an IKEA table

[ano]

whats up with quoting the bible!?
that thing says a bunch of arcane shit.
although i was eating when i read this and it does make your stomach turn.

[poop]

lost of cultures eat blood it tends to be pig blood and duck blood is common to your friend is is a pussy for not killing an animal

[justin]

first the haggis how-to and now this? If this is your malcolm x way of keeping me vegetarian it's totally working.

[TiCo]

there are some recipes for chocolate cake with blood in them - I understand they make it rich and creamy - I'm sort of dying to try that now that I've seen this article

[Anton]

Blodpudding tastes great!! We got it as lunch in school when I was a kid. :) In my opinion it isn´t worse eating food with blood then eating meat.

[Kristoffer]

Hey man, it's rye flour in blodpudding! And for those of you that are really into eating blood, you should use goose blood for svartsoppa.

[anonymous]

no way. this is barftastic. and i do not believe that is really blood.

[sludge]

Blood kind of delicious if you have enough sage and a sense of humor.

[Kristoffer]

It's pig blood alright. I'm kind of surprised people even question it...?

(If it wasn't, and this was some sort of American prank on Swedish people, wouldn't we have used something like Hollywood red paint which people really think is what blood looks like?)

So, really, you should try it. It's... what do you call it overseas? ... yum yum.

[CityMinx]

I used to live in Sweden, and what I miss most of all is Blodbröd, kinda like a lightweight crispy matzo, made with blood. Can't find it anywhere in the States, and it's so good, especially with sliced cheese and cucumbers on it

[Nova Nicole]

Oh, c'mon, it's not that bad. The first time I had blood pudding was on a flight early in the a.m. from Manchester to Edinburgh, lots of people in the U.K. consume it for breakfast.

It takes me back to when I bathed in the blood of virgins...ah, those were the days.

[6669]

They all sound pretty good, imo

[Grac]

yeah, there are some recipes in my culture that call for blood. it can be from chicken,pig,cow etc.One recipe is called nino envelto-literally baby in a blanket, but the recipe doesn't call for anyone to convert to cannibalism.it's pretty f'ed up.Fried blood, cilantro,hot chile, onions,peanuts,intestine and spices -a complete meal.