An American woman was accused of being xenophobic after she refused to try black pudding made by her British mother in law on a visit to the United Kingdom.
The 28-year-old woman took to Reddit to ask if she’d been a jerk for turning down the black pudding, which was made from a 100-year-old family recipe and served as part of a Full English breakfast.
Black pudding’s made from pork or beef blood, with pork fat or beef suet, and a cereal, normally oatmeal, oat groats or barley groats.
The woman, who described the rest of her mother in law’s food as bland, was met with support by a vast preponderance of users, who agreed it had been wrong of the mother in law to make her feel guilty.
British users spoke up to say they’d never tried black pudding, despite being from the United Kingdom.
The woman, who described herself as Indian-American, said she’d been vegetarian until she met her husband three years ago, and they made the journey to the United Kingdom after he reconnected with his biological father, who’s British and lives there with his family.
She continued that the first day they were asked to join them for breakfast at their family home, and his dad’s wife had made all kinds of traditional foods for them and that although the food was bland, she powered through most of them because she genuinely appreciated her hard work and didn’t want her to feel bad.
However, when it was time for them to try their family favourite, she noped out of it because she didn’t want to eat black pudding, and she knew one of the ingredients was blood, and she didn’t want to eat blood and refused because it was just gross to her.
But her stepmother in law tried hard to persuade her to at least try it, as it was a 100-year-old family recipe carried down through generations, but when she didn’t budge, her stepmother in law got offended and accused her of being xenophobic.
Writing in support of the woman, one user posted that blood pudding was great, and that she believed that meat-eaters should give it a wee go, but it was hardly unusual for people to be weirded out by it.
But for someone who was once a vegetarian, to them, the Full English breakfast would be nothing short of murder on a plate, and everyone has different tastes that they will and won’t eat and it’s their preference on whether they eat it or not, and I certainly wouldn’t eat it, no matter what you call it.
However, some people love it and other people don’t but I certainly wouldn’t accuse them of xenophobia.
I’m British and I certainly wouldn’t eat it, and the mother is just ill-mannered, and it’s not xenophobic to refuse to eat something you find disagreeable. I doubt the mother would eat dogs or crickets should she find herself in a place where that’s the norm.
Black pudding is like marmite you either love it or hate it, but no one insists that you eat marmite which has been on our shelves for years, and we should be able to respectfully decline to eat anything we don’t want to eat, it doesn’t have to have a meaning or explanation behind it. If it’s done graciously, then that’s all that matters.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 