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Boudin blanc (white pudding) is a festive treat
Whether plain or flavoured with herbs, mushrooms or truffles, boudin blanc or white pudding sausage is a refined starter for festive menus.
The Christmas meal in the Middle Ages used to start with a thick soup made from milk, the white of the bread, fat or bacon. Gradually, over time, the soup was served in a sausage casing and the boudin blanc was born.
Credit photo : DR
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White pudding was apparently made by monks, who wanted to serve a dish without meat on Good Friday. It later became a dish people served after midnight mass on Christmas Eve.
This cooked meat preparation that measures ten to fifteen centimetres is composed of a blend of lean meat (poultry, game, pork or veal), fats (cream, butter, pork fat) and a binding substance (bread soup, milk, egg). It is then stuffed into a length of pork casing before cooking. Boudin blancmay be flavoured in various ways (onion, shallot, spices, nutmeg, cloves, foie gras, 1% and 3% truffle, vanilla, orange flower water or cinnamon and occasionally alcohol). Several towns have their own recipe for boudin blanc: Rethel (pork, milk, eggs, no starchy products, IGP), Le Havre (similar to that of the Middle Ages), Essay in Lower Normandy
(fresh ham, whole milk, eggs, herbs), Toulouse (chicken breast, pork, 20% foie gras, truffle and brandy), Mazamet (called coudenou and made from pork rind and bread soup), Castres (called bougnette and made from belly pork, bread soup with herbs, wrapped in a caul and baked in the oven), or Le Mans (idem to that of Rethel, plus parsley and onion). There are many other recipes like the malsat from the South-West (belly pork, sausage meat, bread soup with eggs, white of bread), the boudin blanc from Quercy (pork cheek, truffle), the Richelieu (chicken filet and raw liver, foie gras, lean veal), the German weisswurst (veal, eggs, cream), the boudin blanc from Liège (pork, starchy products, marjoram), and English white pudding (chicken).
Production and consumption
Usually served pan-fried, it is generally sold in single units and sometimes cut to order. The world’s longest boudin blanc was made in 2005 and measured 571 metres!
It is still widely consumed during the year end festivities, although it is increasingly replaced by foie gras and salmon. 7,808 tons of boudin blanc were sold last year in total, including 5,085 tons pre-packed, 2,503 tons cut to order and 220 tons frozen. (Source: CICT)
At Rungis Market
“Boudin blanc is a festive product, like foie gras,” explains Fernand Berson, CEO of Dispéré. “We sell boudin blanc plain, flavoured with port, 1% and 3% truffles or mushrooms. Our clients are butchers, pork butchers and caterers. This year the market is on an upward trend.”
Matthieu NOLI
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