sanguette

plural sanguettes · alternative sanquette

1. countableuncountableA blood dish from rural Occitania made immediately upon exsanguination of livestock by collecting, preparing, and cooking the fresh blood; typically a crepe or pancake but varies by town across Occitania, including Spanish Occitania.

   “It is . . . a tad macabre, don’t you think?” “Not at all. Think of blood sausage. Think of civet of hare. Think of sanguette.” “Yes, but human blood. Your own blood.”

   1996 December, Walter Satterthwait, “The Cassoulet”, in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, volume 41, number 12, Dell Magazines, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 12, column 2

   4 more examples

   ‘Now what was it?’ asked the American. ‘I’m sure the little lady wants to know.’ / ‘It’s a sanguette, a blood pancake[.] […] It’s only chicken blood. You take onions and fry them,’ he said to the room, ‘and breadcrumbs and chopped parsley and slowly the blood of a chicken. It makes a pancake.[…]’

   1968, Rumer Godden, “L’Élégance”, in Swans & Turtles: Stories, London; Toronto, Ont.; Melbourne, Vic.: Macmillan, →OCLC, page 170

   Banzo’s pissaladière of muge (a local, Mediterranean fish) is a straightforward masterpiece of zesty, southern French gastronomy. So are his red mullet with wild lettuce and his toothsome sanguette of squab (incredibly juicy fowl!).

   1996, Douglas E. Easton, Richard E. Burke, “Clos de la Violette: Aix-en-Provence, France”, in The European Gourmet: The Grand Dining Tour of Europe, 2nd edition, Los Angeles, Calif.: Cosmic Gourmet; Traverse City, Mich.: Publishers Design Service, →ISBN

   In France, they have Sanguette, a speciality from the Languedoc which was very common when chickens were killed at home. […] The pan is deglazed with a little vinegar and the resulting sauce poured over the sanguette. A very different version of sanguette is made in the Béarn. The Béarnais prepare theirs with the boiled cheeks, tripe and spleen of calf.

   2011 August 12, Anissa Helou, “An A to Z of offal”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 23 Jun 2016

   Sanguette used to be widely available in France, specifically in what was Occitania, i.e. roughly the southernmost third of the country. Today, because stringent laws govern the slaughter of animals, it is only to be found under the counter in country markets.

   2017, Jonathan Meades, “Sanguette”, in The Plagiarist in the Kitchen: A Lifetime’s Culinary Thefts, London: Unbound, →ISBN, page 109