Boudin blanc

The boudin blanc is a poached sausage whose only constant criterion is the absence of blood, and hence the resulting pale colour. Its composition varies considerably by region and tradition: lean pork, poultry or veal, fat, milk, cream, eggs, breadcrumbs or starch according to the version. This absence of a fixed definition explains the diversity of the French regional variants, each building its identity on a different binder, fat or meat.

The medieval French white puddings, documented from the fourteenth century in culinary books and guild registers, were composed of milk, breadcrumbs, and animal fat, without lean meat. This composition answered the liturgical constraints of abstinence: canon law forbade the flesh of land animals but not animal fats, milk or eggs, which made it possible to produce an acceptable cased preparation on days of abstinence. The lean-meat version, emulsified with cream and eggs, which constitutes today’s commercial reference, established itself over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The making of the reference version rests on a progressive emulsion of the very finely minced meats with cold cream and beaten eggs. The onions are melted in butter without colouring before being added. The forcemeat, very liquid compared with that of other sausages, demands gentle stuffing and poaching without boiling to avoid bursting the casing.

The regional variants are numerous, and their compositions diverge substantially:

• The boudin blanc de Rethel, in the Ardennes, is the only one to hold a European PGI, obtained in 2001. It is composed of pork, unreconstituted milk, fresh eggs and shallots, with no starch binder at all. Tradition attributes the recipe to Jacques-Augustin-Henri Chamarande, an officer who took refuge in Rethel in 1626 after Richelieu’s edict on duels, though no contemporary archive attests to it; some local historians see rather the spread of a preparation devised by the Cistercian monks of the abbey of Élan in the sixteenth century.
• The boudin havrais contains no lean meat at all; its formulation of pork fat, milk, eggs and breadcrumbs is directly inherited from the medieval preparations of abstinence.
• The boudin catalan (not to be confused with the butifarra negra, the Catalan black pudding, which has a separate entry in this book) is rich in eggs and free of starch binder; its firmer texture sets it apart from the northern variants.
• The boudin à la toulousaine incorporates 20 per cent goose or duck foie gras.
• The melsat of the South-West combines pork belly, panade and eggs in equal proportions.
• The bougnette de Castres, close in composition to the melsat, is wrapped in caul fat and baked rather than poached, which profoundly alters its final texture.
• The coudenou de Mazamet uses rinds as the principal ingredient rather than as a secondary binder.
• The boudin du Quercy contains pork meat and black truffle.
• The boudin d’Essay, in the Orne, is composed chiefly of pork leg and is eaten grilled.

Equivalents exist in other European traditions: the Catalan botifarra blanca, the British white pudding and the Bavarian weißwurst rest on the same principle of a bloodless poached sausage.

The boudin blanc is traditionally eaten at the year-end festivities, particularly at Christmas, a practice documented from the eighteenth century in the registers of the Parisian charcutiers’ guilds. It is served with sautéed apples or a fine purée. Its international spread is limited: its short shelf life and delicate texture make it difficult to export in artisanal form.