Whoops, I realize I have a typo in my previous post. It’s kiszka. (Damned typing on my phone.)
Yeah, it’s good stuff. From black pudding to blutwurst to véreshurka to kiszka, blood sausages are delicious! I never could develop the taste for duck blood soup, though. I mean, I’ll eat it, but it’s not something I’d ever go out of my way for (whereas the various blood sausages I love.)
Sure you can, at least in major urban areas. Try a hallal butcher if you’re having difficulty.
[QUOTE=Some Troll in The Hobbit]
Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don’t look like mutton again tomorrer…
[/QUOTE]
Sorry for trolling, mods! 
That sounds a little like A1 Steak Sauce which I’ve put on my eggs sometimes and not regretted it.
Not necessarily pertinent to the discussion at hand, my wife and I adopted my parents’ way of making shepherd’s pie. Browned ground beef (my parents put chopped onion in theirs), cream corn, then mashed potatoes, brushed with butter and sprinkled with paprika, then put into the oven until the edges start to brown. delish. A local Irish pub makes theirs with peas and carrots instead of corn, which is also wonderfully yummy.
Are there not recipes for shepherd’s pie that call for Guinness to be added to the gravy? :dubious: That would make it black.
As for the dish’s origins, aren’t the Scottish–English borderlands noted for their sheep herding? I read somewhere once that grabbing a sheep in Northumbria and successfully spiriting it across the border was the origin of the phrase “Scot free.”
That’s funny. “Successfuly spiriting across the border” I reckon the term just means “You got away without any legal penalty”. Otherwise, I’ve no clue. Maybe one for Cecil?
And if it was my sheep, I’d have my hounds chase the thief down, even if it meant crossing Hadrian’s Wall.
Again, just what I read long ago. Though I did once know a Scottish gentleman named Armstrong who claimed he was indeed descended from such miscreants! 
It’s not as common as that stereotype, but it comes up more often than anyone in the UK eats black pudding (like in this thread). Naturally if you’re British you’ll notice stereotypes people come up with regarding British people more than if you’re not British.
Thanks for mentioning this I looked up “black whiskey sauce” and found a couple nice recipes to bookmark. Previously, I’d only seen sweet whiskey sauces, to be poured (yes, poured) over bread pudding.
My grandparents, originally from Finland, made their own blood sausage here in the US when my father was a kid. And head cheese. No potential food item was wasted in the 1920’s and 1930’s. According to my father, it was good.
Yes, but the origin of shepherd’s pie doesn’t have anything to do with sheep or shepherding – in the earliest recipes we have for it, it’s just an alternative name for the already well-established Cottage pie, using whatever meat was available. It was only later that the convention arose of Shepherd’s pie being exclusively the lamb or mutton version.
You’d want more than your dogs; the Border Reivers were organised, armed and armoured, and serious business.
You’d certainly have had to cross Hadrian’s Wall, though, because the Scottish Border’s a long way north of there.