White pudding is often thought of as a very old dish that, like black pudding, was a traditional way of making use of
offal following the annual slaughter of livestock. Whereas black pudding-type recipes appear in Roman sources, white pudding likely has specifically medieval origins, possibly as a culinary descendant of medieval sweetened
blancmange-type recipes combining shredded chicken, rice and
almonds, or as a way of lightening up offal with the addition of cream, eggs and breadcrumbs. Meatless versions were common, as they could be eaten during the
Lenten period of abstinence. Many older recipes are sweetened: a 15th-century British pudding combined pork liver, cream, eggs, breadcrumbs,
raisins and
dates, while a 1588 recipe collection featured a white pudding made of beef suet, breadcrumbs, egg yolk and
currants, flavoured with nutmeg, sugar and cinnamon. A similar recipe given in
Woolley's 1670 book
The Queen-Like Closet used
hog's lights and was filled into intestine sausage-skins. By the mid-18th century,
Elizabeth Raffald's white pudding recipe, "White Puddings in Skins", combined rice, lard, ground almonds, currants and egg, using sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and mace as flavourings; by this period the inclusion of offal such as liver or lights, as well as sweet flavourings, was becoming rarer. These oatmeal-based puddings survived into modern
Irish and
Scottish cuisine, although with significant regional differences. In Cornwall and Devon, these are either Hog's or Groats pudding depending on the fineness or coarseness of texture. Modern commercially made Scottish white puddings are generally based on oatmeal, onions and beef suet; the same mixture simply fried in a pan is known as
skirlie. In Ireland, white puddings also include a substantial proportion of pork or pork liver and pork fat. Most modern white puddings are filled into a synthetic
cellulose casing and boiled or steamed; typical spices used include
white pepper, nutmeg and
sage. ==Preparation==