Mustamakkara

A few days ago, I tried mustamakkara for the first time.

Did I like it? Yes, quite a lot, actually.

Blood sausage is actually relatively common throughout the world, as many disparate cultures seem to possess their very own versions. Yes, we humans are so violent, so depraved, so bloodthir -- hungry that a good percentage of us have conceived of stuffing the intestines of an animal with its own dried blood, only to devour it with lingonberries, or some other cultural garnish-of-choice. Shocking, isn't it?

I like to think of myself as an open-minded person and, I think, I usually succeed in being one. I'm particularly good about trying foods that might seem gross at first blush. I suppose I haven't had the opportunity to try anything really exotic (as in rarely heard of, or particularly revolting to American/European sensibilities), but I'm always up for trying things that do not fit within the usual repertoire of the American palate. Here's a picture of me (taken by my lovely friend Jes) proudly devouring a century egg after my dear friend Melissa bet me fifty bucks that I wouldn't be able to eat a whole one. She had purchased them at a nearby Chinese grocer and she hadn't liked them. I tried a bite, didn't think it tasted half bad, and I downed it pretty easily. (I didn't collect on the cash.)

Mustamakkara, I have to admit, did give me pause while I was standing in K-Market, trying to decide what sort of meaty thing I wanted to buy. I mean, of all the things I've ever eaten in my life, it would almost certainly not be among the worst-tasting. Plus, it's a traditional Finnish food (although not native to South Karelia; I believe that honor goes to Tampere), and I'm trying to do as the Finns do.  I suppose my reservation stemmed from the whole concept of blood. Blood is something I'm able to comfortably push from my mind when I buy packaged meat at the store. It's as if all chicken sprouts from the (bloodless) chicken tree, and beef grows in the ground with the potatoes and carrots. Out of sight, firmly out of mind, and I'm inclined to believe that this is not as it should be.

So being the sort of person who feels a bit of shame when she finds another culture's food "gross," particularly if that culture is the one in which she now lives, I bought a package. I cooked it up, ate it (regrettably, not with lingonberry jam), and I liked it a lot. The end.

But not quite. As I was stuffing my mouth with dried pig's blood, it struck me as a little barbaric. I mean, isn't it enough to just eat the non-intestinal portion of a pig carcass, and to leave blood to soak into the soil somewhere? (It just now occurred to me that I have no idea what is normally done with blood after a slaughter.)

I'm only guessing here, but it seems the various sorts of blood sausages around the world probably exist so as to limit waste. In other words, it has been necessary for humans at various times and places, in history and at present, to use every last nutritional part of an animal, right down to its blood. Food has a long history of being scarce, and that's sometimes hard for a spoiled, over-fed American woman to remember. And you know, it's a step closer to being honest. I come from the land of factory farms and animals stuffed full of grain. Meat of all sorts is so readily available and so utterly convenient that we're able to forget the uncomfortable truth - meat isn't a plant product; it was once an animal and someone slaughtered it. [Whether farming conditions are humane in Finland, America, or elsewhere is a discussion for another day and another blog.]

I'm not saying that eating mustamakkara is somehow akin to killing for your own meat, but it does limit the amount of denial in which you can awash yourself. I think that's a good thing.