Diet

Now I recognise that some of the following will say more about my prejudices than anything else but that's why you have this image.

I took the shot because of the juxtaposition of the two main ingredients - quail's egg and black pudding. Now I'm happy to admit that I've enjoyed far more than my fair share of black pudding. I've eaten it cold in sandwiches (try it with cheese) and hot; fried, grilled or boiled. I've eaten it straight from steaming vats and slathered in mustard at Bury market and I've enjoyed it fried as part of a full English breakfast at hotels the length and breadth of this scepter'd isle. It is a peasant dish. It speaks of using all of the animal; blood and entrails too, and of thrift and honest toil, of "them and us" and of the differences between north and south.

Quail's eggs, on the other hand, are for the toffs. And who would waste time with something that small unless they were being dished up in threes? So a marriage of black pudding and quail's egg strikes me as interesting - I don't know whether the tastes work together but it is certainly a melange of cultures.

To then offer this in Morrisons in Maidstone is also incongruous. I recognise that many of my neighbours might enjoy black pudding (or quail's eggs) and may even be adventurous enough to give this product a spin but I live closer to Paris than Bury so why might their purchasing team think that we'd approach this gastronomic endeavour rather than something with a more continental twist?

The idea of adapting the traditional Scotch egg isn't new and nor is using black pudding but I think that the combination where the components compliment each other most is the famous Manchester egg which is even available in The Horse and Jockey in Chorlton. The story of the invention of the Manchester egg is also worth reading - the birth of a legend.

So there you go. As the walrus might have mused "The time has come to talk of many things" including various eggs and how they are to be wrapped to make tasty comestibles. I'm stocked up with food and fuel so let that snow roll in. Stay toasty!