BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?

Subject: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Bee
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 11:08 PM

Hoping some Scottish 'catter can tell me if there is a Gaelic word for this delicious (YMMV) oatmeal-suet-onion pudding. We ate it a lot as a child, and my family called it 'Merrican'. Friend of mine calls it 'Marric'. Neither of us has a clue if either is a Gaelic word for the stuff or some odd Cape Bretonism.

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 11:28 PM

Haggis.

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 11:30 PM

White Pudding

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Bee
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 11:35 PM

Thanks, Peace. However, that recipe has no herbs, and white pudding (not Haggis, impudent lad!) has at least a bit of savoury and sage in it. And I'm trying to find out where the name comes from, 'merrican' or 'marric'.

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 11:39 PM

Couldn't find a thing on either, Bee. I'll look s'more.

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Bee
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 11:48 PM

Yeah, Google didn't help much. Not having a clue as to how the word might be spelled doesn't help, and of course both the Scots and the Irish make it, and for a while in the sixties, a collective of German women made batches of it for sale in CB - it could even be a garbled German word.

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Megan L
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 04:01 AM

Bee the lowland name for it might give a clue. We called it mealie pudding since it was pade with pinhead meal rather than oat flakes.

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Emma B
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 05:18 AM

I think the word is "marach" Bee, but more commonly known as Megan says as mealy pudding

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Emma B
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 05:29 AM

and btw "marag" is the word for black (blood) pudding!

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Emma B
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 05:59 AM

In "The Celtic Connection Cookbook........a taste of the festival" Aidan O'Rourke from Blazing Fiddles gives his recipe for "Marag Magic" which he describes as "the perfect hang-over cure"

To spare the sensitivities of mudcatters I'll not quote the recipe here but, as the editor says, "We think you must still be drunk to be able to eat it!"

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Bee
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 07:47 AM

Thank you, Emma!

If the recipe involved a breakfast of fried marach/marric, fried eggs, toast and a Bloody Mary, then I will concur on its hangover remedy possibilities - that is, if you can avoid the heart attack. Blood pudding/Marag, however... one shudders to think, although I have eaten it while feeling healthy and therefore brave!

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 12:18 PM

marag or marag dhubh is a black pudding whereas marag gheal is a white pubbing being made from meal.

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: frogprince
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 04:38 PM

Going by the recipe in the link, I hope it tastes better than it sounds to me. Suet as the primary ingredient? Why would someone want to eat that? The only use I knew of for suet was holding cakes of birdseed together.

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Gulliver
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 06:45 PM

In Irish pudding (the animal innards sort) is putóg, so white pudding would be putóg bhán, at least in the dialect which I learned. But IIRC there's also the Irish word maróg for pudding, possibly in the Northern dialect.

This talk of food is making me hungry!

Don

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Bee
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 09:27 PM

Ah, but frogprince, it is suet elevated to its sublime self, hot, juicy, smooth, nestling each bit of onion and oat in a bath of luxurious flavour transferring goodness.

You don't have to fry it, although part of the appeal is the crunchy outer surfaces of the slices. It can be baked in the oven.

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Jim Lad
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 11:11 PM

Uria

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Edmond
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 10:54 AM

Drisheen

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: MMario
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 11:00 AM

The white pudding recipe linked also specifies FRESH suet, not RENDERED suet, which means there is more then just the fat in it. But as it boils, the fat expands the starch granules of the oatmeal, cooks the onion, and some just disappears into the cooking water.

the end result is admittedly high fat; but it is a mix of cracklings, oatmeal and onion.

Subject: RE: BS: White pudding - Gaelic word for?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 04:18 PM

OOh - white pubbing! SOunds intriguing!