Comments on: Blood Sausage Yummmm!

By: JSW

JSW — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 17:43:13 +0000

I also served in Spain and ate blood sausage at a member’s home on my first night there. It was by far the worst meal of my mission, beating out the charred pig’s eyelashes. It may not be against church policy, but it’s now definitely against my religion.

By: worm

worm — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 08:51:55 +0000

We didn’t have a rule against eating blood sausage when I was a missionary. We had it quite often around the holidays when eating with members. I don’t remember any of the missionaries refusing to eat it, though one of my companions just couldn’t finish his on a couple occasions and discreetly moved it to my plate so not to be rude. I didn’t mind the stuff at all.

Now, the sour milk we were occasionally given was a different story. I was physically unable to drink it, however polite I wanted to be.

By: FoxyJ

FoxyJ — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 23:59:22 +0000

I served in Spain and I sure wish we had had a policy against eating blood sausage. It’s nasty! One of the funniest moments was telling my poor greenie that she had eaten blood sausage in her paella. I didn’t eat mine, but could think of a polite way to tell her across the table.

By: Bret

Bret — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 23:42:35 +0000

I only eat blood when I want the power and courage of a cow in me.

By: mellifera

mellifera — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:22:04 +0000

Well… I work at this hospital lab and we have a test for finding out if someone has blood in their poo (indicative of something very wrong in the GI tract). The instructions include

“Patient must refrain from eating rare red meat during the two days prior to obtaining sample.”

I think that should answer all of our questions about whether or not rare red meat has blood in it. : )

By: Kiskilili

Kiskilili — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:53:54 +0000

Heh–that’s interesting that Church policy was invoked; I’ve never heard that, although I’ve wondered about it.

The rationale for such a policy, I would think, would come from Genesis 9:4: “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.” Since this is a Noachide law and not the Law of Moses then early Christians, while they claimed the Mosaic Law was fulfilled and/or applied only to the Jews, believed the Noachide law to be universally binding on all humanity and refrained from eating meat with blood for religious reasons.

(Evidently this Noachide prohibition lies behind Acts 15:20, etc.–the problem with “strangled” meat being that the blood was not drained.)

It’s not clear when the policy changed (in Christianity generally). I was in a situation once in which a Jewish professor mentioned that Christians today no longer feel bound by this injunction, and one of my Jewish friends looked at us incredulously and said “you guys eat *blood*!”

Personally, I don’t need a religious reason to refrain from eating blood . . .

By: TStevens

TStevens — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:39:29 +0000

I also served in England (as well as lived there) and had blood sausage several times; usually at members houses. I liked it fine.

By: gilgamesh

gilgamesh — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:33:47 +0000

My father-in-law served in Austria – they ate blood sausage all the time. One time his companion tried to dispose of the sausage through an open window when their host left the room – only to find the window was just very clean. After the sausage slid down, leaving a trail of gooze, it wasn’t clean anymore.

By: Seth R.

Seth R. — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:28:09 +0000

We don’t do the Old Testament style kosher stuff anymore. I like steak rare. Not only that, the sliced raw horse meat sashimi I had in Japan was mighty tasty.

By: JA Benson

JA Benson — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:51:30 +0000

DH Mike served his mission in Argentina in the early 80’s and ate blood sausage at least once. He also ate an armadillo. Apparently my man will eat anything (yuck). A that time there was no mission/church policy against either blood sausage or armadillo.

According to him (everybody hold your stomachs) it was like swallowing a bloody nose. It has the thickness of gel and the straight taste of blood.

I don’t know why you would need a policy against something as repusive as blood sausage. It seems that most anyone would have the sense not to eat it.