Ode to Black Pudding and Souse

(Irregular Ode in Pentameter)

Small chattel-house where she was born and raised
In Maycock's village, her ancestral home;
Bare-foot youth on Sunday evenings did walk
Rope leashed black-belly sheep and goats, to graze
Weeds and grass on dust roads, with out boardwalk;
Mindful of cane-fields that grow planters' cash;
As arrowed canes swayed before cropping bash;

Those cane-sucking youths watched Broomfield's sweet teeth
Skinned and strained, sweet crystals in crocus bags;
They lived just a stone-throw from grandma's house;
She sold villagers black pudding and souse;
In enamel plates without paper-bags.

Once each month early a Saturday morn,
The butcher came; slaughtered her homegrown boar,
To prepare for her unique Bajan fare;
Black pudding and souse she sold with great care;
Advents stance on this Bajan dish made clear;
Leviticus eleven be aware.

Black pudding and souse I have recipe;
A relic from days of by-gone slavery;
Handed down by grandmother Emily.
Legend says that colonial masters
Gifted to blacks; they owned in this country
Specific parts, carved from their butchered pig:
The head, feet, tail and the offal; Darwinly
They believed, slaves were full of infra dig
That matched, their "fine-china from calabash";
Look at pictures below and toss your mind:
Prime cuts of hog for themselves; they did stash;
Feasting on shoulder chops, loin chops,
Spare ribs, bacon and ham in posh housetops.

Back in the village folks are thinking now
How best to make delicious new cuisine
That blends various parts off their master’s sow;
Who among them would do what, when and how?
Maxine was given the pig’s head to clean;
She cut it in two parts and removed brain;

Pam Smith-Skeete cleaned ears, tails and sow's trotters;
Tossing them in iron pot that squatters
Boiling in salt on dried peels from the cane
Cooking done; set aside for meat to cool;
Cooled meat cut in slices off bones in bowl
Of pickle made of salt water, lime-juice,

Cucumber, few red peppers diced, not whole;
Now sits in larder garnished with parsley;
Souse now in pickle marinates coolly;
This dish of ingenious necessity
Waits, for boudin noir trail joints to roll in;
Clean logistics worked out for pudding skin;

Black pudding, English name for boudin noir
Pig's blood captured in bowl with vinegar
Poor pig hangs in the air, head down is silent;
Blood gushed from pig's head like opened hydrant;
On hell's ground pig wailed 'oink, oink damned tyrant';

Not so, just doing the job says Nellie:
Block all clots, we must from sausage entry;
Use cheese-cloth to ward off transmigration,
And stir, stir away, the coagulation;
That bloody blood; don't want it thickening
Tanti now is cleaning the chitterling
Intestines, yanked from monogastric pig;
She cleans filth, slime, fat from guts' swirling jig.
Faecal matter removed entirely;
Meg prepares the casings for black pudding.

Minds boggle, how folks clean well, heaps of gut;
Water from stand pipe in a small mud hut;
Rounds of guts she cleans meticulously well;
No tips from Department of public health;
Just tips from wise old heads to her did tell:
Cut the guts in equal lengths with clippers;
Rubbing hard with the pads of your fingers
Like when you wash clothes, cut mucous with lime;
Plenty salt and spoon to remove the slime;

Now turn inside out with this cane-trash stick;
Now clean all over again and again;
Blow up guts like balloon so clean and clear
Plunge in salt water for hours remain.

For hours henceforth guts steep with salina;
While Marge grates sweet potatoes in tin bowl;
Adds thyme, sweet marjoram, Bajan sugar
With mixed shallots, and dash of clove powder;
Blends bloody ingredients make mixture
Loose consistency, casings will control;
Kay packs casings with mixture not tightly ;
Using funnel, fills casings not fully;



















Just like grandma force-feeding her turkey;
Old-fashioned tool; but yet very sturdy;
Ties each casing's ends to make sausage roll;

Coils of sausages in bottom of pot
In boiling water, one hour to squat;
Until potatoes in natural casing
Are as firm to the touch, in the testing;
And are not busting their skins, and burning.

Little did these slaves know that their culinary arts
Would be a dish pleasing so many hearts;
Oinks, joints, blood, tears, of ingenuity
Have made unwanted pig parts, real soul-dish
Where the rich, the middle class and poor folks
Eat, black pudding and souse with much relish;
A bold statement that cut off racial yokes;
Where those folks on tiny coral island,
Gushing waters of true democracy.

Food, a way to most hearts in many ways;
Served on high days, and holidays,
Independence festivals, crop-over and,
Never at Easter, that would be gross.
Black pudding and souse still in great demand;
This soul-food, deep in culture and sucrose.

© Paterika Hengreaves
September 2011/Barbados