Chocolate blood

As a first entry to my blog I thought I'd include my Bibo Cibo piece from The Sunday Business Post as for some bizarre reason it doesn't appear on their website. Today being Ash Wednesday most of us will be bloated from an over feed of pancakes last night. Then hot on the foot of that (if you'll excuse the pun) is Ash Wednesday, the only day I can think of when you can identify somebody's Catholicism by a smudge on their forehead. And of course once we get to Easter its all about the body and blood of Christ ... and chocolate.

Human kind has a great propensity to distance itself from the food it consumes especially food that has previously been sentient. We find new words to describe meat before and after slaughter – pig becomes pork, cattle becomes beef and blood turns into the most homely of names – pudding.

This consumption of blood is taboo in many countries and in Judeo-Christian cultures this probably stems from the bible’s Book of Leviticus directing followers that “the life of the animal is in the blood” and nobody can eat or drink blood. Indeed you’d be hard pressed to find black pudding in the USA though the Italians, and in particular the Sardinians, have a very different view of blood in food.

Sanguinaccio is a chocolate and blood sauce made to accompany chiacchiere, a dessert which is a sort of sweetened fresh pasta dough fried in oil until crispy.
Traditionally sanguinaccio is made with pig's blood but beef’s blood can be used as well. Made with milk, eggs, cocoa powder and blood as well as other flavourings like cinnamon, candied fruit and pine nuts. Although the sale of blood from butchers is officially banned in Italy you can still find Sanguinaccio in isolated villages where locals slaughter the animals themselves as a great Easter tradition. Which makes all our Irish Easter eggs look rather anaemic...