A personal viewpoint by Austen Davies owner Border County Foods Ltd.

"How on earth anyone decides this I couldn't begin to say, but apparently black pudding (or 'blood pudding' to be more correct) is one of the oldest cooked foods known to man. The Celts seem to have been the 'inventors' - and it can be found as a folk dish pretty well anywhere in rustic northern Europe and Spain, where, you may be relieved to know, the ancient tradition of using the blood of one's enemies has now ceased! Because, basically, that's what black pudding is - cooked blood.

Actually, VERY sad to say, virtually all the black pudding produced in the UK is made from reconstituted dried (powdered) blood imported - in the main from Holland. Our wonderful Food Standards Agency - who's function in life is actually to restrict the activities of would-be mass poisoners, have failed to realistically interpret the (inevitably European) regulations concerning the collection of blood, and if they restrict supply to stuff coming from another 'member state' - immaterial of the quality - the don't have to. But there we are; we probably aren't talking much more than 2,000 or so years of tradition after all....

I will not have any part of this mass sell-out for the sake of expediency and I still, doggedly collect fresh pigs' blood which we then turn into our wonderful 'Marag' - a old black pudding recipe from the Borders; lots of wonderful, natural ingredients, and "just a la'al bit spicy, eh"!

A little unusually, for modern times at least, we do not use any casings at all, so don't look for any little horse-shoe like articles here - our black puddings come, well - 'pudding' shaped!

Now, I don't have any great aversion to black pudding cases ('skins' if you like), it's just that the available casings are unacceptable to me. I could select a 'synthetic' (plastic) offering if I wanted, but there is very little chance of that; or I can choose imported, natural bovine casings, most of which currently emanate from South America - and there is absolutely no chance of that!

'Marag' is old-fashioned blood pudding; pure - and simply glorious! "

Price: £2.20 per 250g - Order our Marag Black Pudding online