This whole thread sounds like a recipe for CHD.

Had a day "up country" last Tuesday in Portugal, our host was a contractor who wanted to show us a bit of his country north of the Algarve and we spent most of the morning admiring their water conservation works up in the hills, fairly mundane stuff to us but of vital importance to them as most of the surface water courses will be dry in a few weeks time.

Anyway, food - he spent some time driving down narrow lanes looking for a particular roadside bar/cafe and eventually, after driving past it and not believing it could be the place we found "Casa dos Presuntos" in a village called Cortelha, what looked like a roadside cafe where you'd get a coffee and a dried up sandwich turned out to be one of the best restaurants in the area, Tuesday lunchtime had about twenty punters in there but it fills most nights and every weekend with customer who drive the 30km inland from The Algarve to eat there.

Our host ordered a platter of pork for the three of us to share as a main course, fairly straightforward stuff but with a taste that I have never found in pork before, the loin was marinated and the chops that were served as a side dish were so tender that they just melted off the bone, served with a huge salad (from a neighbours garden) and potato slices sauted in a garlic sauce - amazing flavours off the meat which I suspect was simply and locally raised, plain country food that was ten times better than anything I've eaten in the restaurants that cater for the wealthy down on the Vale do Lobo.

We couldn't decide on a specific sweet so the owner brought out another platter and not wanting to be rude I ate all four variations including the thinly sliced chocolate bean plant - all of this washed down with a bottle of red wine, haven't a clue which one as our host chose it from the range of 300 different bottles, he chose it because the producer was a friend of his - three different pork dishes, four different deserts and half a bottle of red wine for lunch, I could get used to that.

Later that day and nearer the coast we stopped in another village for a coffee, unfortunately we picked at random a small cafe where the owner was crazy about sweets and puddings and I'm sorry to say that I could not resist and had a huge slice of fresh raspberry merangue and then three samples of very sweet almond deserts and biscuits - eight puddings in one afternoon is a world record for me.

We didn't bother with our tea that evening.

As black pudding is mainly made from pigs blood in the UK I doubt it.

Oh Minty, it isn't the pasteurisation that is the problem, most of it is dried blood to make it easier to transport. I find Bury puddings to be dry due to their being rather big chunks of fat rather than it being rendered and added to the mix.

Time for another tube of Charley Barley for me, I've run out

That'll be why I said 'CHD', and not 'CJD'.

Even if the link between a diet high in saturated fat and heart disease were correct, there's little fat in blood.
And that'll be why I wasn't referring solely to black pudding (though there always seemed to be plenty of fat in it when I used to eat it).

Edit: According to Wiki, black pudding is around 35% fat. I'd say more than a third was quite a significant proportion.

Surely, my dear, you mean tortilla rather than frittata?
You know what with chorizo being Spanish and that.

Is there any food-related issue worse than other people's barbeques?
I propose a barbeque licence, whereby men (because it's usually men who suddenly become expert chefs when the sun comes out) have to undergo training in basic cookery and smoke control before they qualify.

Crap burgers, burned or raw meat, paper plates, nowhere to sit or put your drink while you try to gnaw a chewy Asda steak in a wretched white bun.

I am sure a satisfactory barbeque is theoretically possible but the only one I have ever attended and truly enjoyed was on a beach in Martinique where there were tables and cutlery to enjoy the delicious mountain crayfish.
Oh, and one in Madeira, not on a beach but similarly supplied with seating, tables and cutlery to eat (in this instance) char-grilled fillets of Espada (a type of white fish).

British barbeques are, not always but usually, rubbish.

Well the belly-pork I've just dined on with some buttered Jersey spuds and chilli salad was magnifique.
That sounds delicious.
Needs cutlery and seating though.

Only the pair of us sat on some pleasant garden furniture with some real plates and Sheffield steel forks and knives.
The wine was cr@p but we still managed to slurp 5 bottles of dry white down between us.

rlHighly topicaland[/i Tom Sharperl.

The man in question is tb, and he learnt how to do a [ibraai[/i out in SA.

We are hardened sad p!ssheads.
Oh, and it was fooking freezing in the garden up East Yorkshire way.