In Arthur Herman’s book The Scottish Enlightenment, there is a description of the Highlands in the early 1700s and the deprivation of the typical Highlander, particularly in winter. ‘Highlanders often had to bleed their cattle, mixing the blood with oatmeal and frying it on the fire. Sometimes cows were bled so frequently they could barely stand.’ This is similar to the ritual certain African tribesmen, such as the Suri or Masai, continue, bleeding their cattle directly into a vessel to drink the warm, almost coagulating, blood ‘fresh’. At least the old Scots cooked theirs with oatmeal, as a primitive type of black pudding. But, thank goodness, nowadays when black pudding is made, the beast is no longer sentient.
