Blóðmör
Icelandic blood pudding, cooked in a sheep’s paunch, with suet and rye flour. It belongs to the þorramatur, an assortment of traditional preparations served during the month of Þorri (January–February), whose avowed harshness serves as a point of national pride.
| Fresh sheep’s blood | 400 ml |
| Mutton suet | 250 g |
| Rye flour | 200 g |
| Oat flakes | 100 g |
| Fine salt | 18 g |
| Ground black pepper | 3 g |
| Dried thyme | 2 g |
| Chopped onion (optional) | 50 g |
| Sheep’s paunch (or wide casing) | — |
- Preparing the paunch: Clean the sheep’s paunch meticulously. Turn it inside out, scrape and wash several times. Soak for 24 hours in salted water.
- Preparing the suet: Cut the mutton suet into small dice.
- Mixing: Beat the blood to loosen it. Add the rye flour, oat flakes, suet, onion, and seasonings. The consistency should be thick but pourable.
- Stuffing: Fill the paunch two-thirds full (the blóðmör swells). Sew the opening securely.
- Poaching: Cook in barely simmering water for 2–3 hours. Prick gently if bubbles form.
- Cooling: Leave to cool in the liquid, then refrigerate.
- Serving: Slice and serve cold, or reheat gently. It belongs to the þorramatur served at the Þorrablót (the midwinter feast).
The name blóðmör joins two Old Norse words, blóð, blood, and mör, mutton suet. The name thus designates both the liquid and the fat of the forcemeat, whereas most blood puddings retain only the blood.
The product belongs to the slátur, a term meaning ‘slaughter’ that designates the pair formed by the blóðmör and the lifrarpylsa, the liver sausage. The making followed the autumn slaughter: the men killed the animals brought down from the high pastures, while the women and children transformed the blood and offal in the hours that followed. The rye ensures the bind and darkens the colour, oats joining it according to the recipe. The seasoning remains sober (salt, sometimes a little pepper or thyme), without the spice blend of the British black puddings, which gives a smoother, more neutral flesh.
The traditional envelope is the sheep’s paunch, sewn after filling, a point in common with the Scottish haggis, which concerns the container and the logic of using the whole animal rather than the composition. Modern manufacture often resorts to an artificial casing.
The suet sets as it cools and gives the pudding a sliceable firmness, without ensuring its keeping quality. That rested on immersion in fermented whey (súr), the Icelandic method of winter storage, with salt and smoking as regional variants. Prolonged souring makes the flesh crumbly and stamps it with a sour taste that has become unfamiliar: the þorrablót buffets today present, on separate platters, a soured and a fresh version of the same pudding. Once prepared on the farm immediately after slaughter, blóðmör is now produced industrially and sold year-round.
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