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Of Hogs' Puddings and Sausages

A pudding made from hog's blood, grits, herbs, and pork, served with sausages.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Of Hogs' Puddings and Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grits and blood

  1. Boil the grits in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the grits and place them in a clean tub.

  3. Kill the hog.

  4. Save 2 quarts of hog's blood, stirring until cold.

  5. Mix the blood with the grits and season with salt, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and chopped herbs.

Fill the casings

  1. Prepare the hog's gut by cutting it into dice.

  2. Clean the gut.

  3. Tie one end of the gut.

  4. Fill the gut with the mixture, adding fat as you go.

  5. Tie the other end.

  6. Prick the sausages with a pin.

Cook and cool

  1. Boil the sausages in a kettle of boiling water for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the sausages.

  3. Lay them on clean straw.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Winter savory + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Winter savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grits
Absorbs the blood and forms the bulk of the filling, giving it body.
Hog's blood
Binds the filling and sets when cooked, giving the pudding its firm texture.
Pork, fat and lean
Adds richness and moisture to the filling as it cooks.
Sage
Adds savory, aromatic flavor that balances the richness of the pork and blood.

The step that matters

Stirring the blood until cold. Blood thickens and can clot when it cools, so it must be stirred constantly while cooling. Stirring keeps it smooth and fluid so it mixes evenly into the grits rather than forming lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, nutmeg, winter savory, marjoram, thyme, pork, pepper):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, nutmeg, winter savory, marjoram, thyme, pork, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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