Hey everyone! I had blood pudding for lunch and it rocked!
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Yup. Blood pudding. Morcilla, if you must know. Also, it is called rellena, and it is made by finely mincing cooked rice and corn and then adding… blood. And then encasing it in intestines, because it looks like a sausage.
Hm. Blood. Pudding.
You know, it’s funny. All of the years I ate it back in Colombia I had no idea what I was eating
or that I was eating swine offal (blood=offal=not awful, as it turns out=really). But suddenly in English, under the first-world lights of the freezer case where Rev. Mom and I came across the delicacy a little while back, I read what it was and I got a little nauseated. And no, "black pudding" doesn’t sound any better.
But as I sit here thinking more and more about it and reading the accompanying little bit on Wikipedia, it almost sounds like it’s Americans who are nuts for not eating it on a more regular basis. Practically the whole world over breaks their fast with this thing, while here we get grossed out if the Cheerios look a little too toasted.
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Which is why it’s hard to keep a dual culture in this place: it’s easy to start ignoring the things you grew up with and dismiss them as corny, tacky, or downright uncivilized because now you live in America! The place where the streets are lined with Big Macs and french fries, and where everyone gets to sit at the cool table of the world.
Never mind, of course, that you can’t bleed your hamburger meat. But you casually mention that you’ve eaten tongue or cow intestines or guinea pig and you become some sort of crunchy freak. For the record, I have not eaten guinea pig, but I hear it’s delicious.
But enough. It’s far too beautiful out to dwell on the sociological implications of eating pig’s blood.
It’s gin and tonic time.
A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm! 
We eat blood pudding in Sweden too, I guess it’s one of those foods you’ll find all around the world. Not all countries may eat it with lingonberry jam, though, but we do, and it’s gooooood.