One of the strangest are Goblin Puddings. They come in tiny pudding shaped cans for around 70 - 80p each and have been around since the 1920s. I figured that they must be starting to die out, but there appears to be a drive to sell them to hard-up students with this lame web site:
http://www.gobblinggoblin.co.uk/
The puddings can be microwaved, but you are supposed to cook them by piercing the can dropping it into a saucepan of boiling water for 20 min.
I, rather sadly, went for the microwave option.
Once cooked and placed on the plate I have to say it looks foul.
The pudding pastry is fine (I don't think you can really get that kind of suet pastry wrong) if a bit soggy, but the filling is somehow both a red, uncooked meat kind of colour, whilst also appearing grey.
There is apparently gravy there, but it just looks oily.
I take the plunge and have a taste. Its pretty nasty. The meat has a sort of sub-canned corned beef taste and texture to it, but there is a real oiliness to it as well and it leaves a pasty aftertaste in your mouth that I actually still have 30 minutes and several drinks after eating it.
Looking at the ingredients it isn't suprising it is so bad: 13.6% Pork, 2% beef with the rest made up of such delights as Beef Fat, Beef Collagen, Pork Lard and Autolysed Protein.
It is quite amazing that this product is getting close to its centenary!
