- So, The Meat Show is in London, England, today.
We are at Spitalfields Market
to try a hamburger with two patties,
with black pudding interjected between them.
I'm naturally opposed to straying
from the archetypal American cheeseburger form,
but look, it's the 21st century, it's the year 2017,
the world has fallen in love with the hamburger.
Maybe it's time to embrace the universal,
global vision of the hamburger.
So, let's go inside and meet the Bleecker Black.
(rock music)
- I dreamed this up in New York,
moved to London, and I wanted to open it over here.
- Tell me what your favorite hamburgers are in New York.
- Well, I worked at Zaitzeff.
It reintroduced the burger to me.
I didn't give a (bleep) about burgers,
and I tasted theirs and my whole world opened up.
- Breakdown the hamburger itself.
You have a number of them,
but the Bleecker Black,
it's kind of what you're known for, right?
Yeah, the Bleecker Black is our Big Mac.
Cook a cheeseburger, cook the black pudding.
We put another cheeseburger on 'em.
Cut it... - Oh, so it's a double patty.
- It's a double patty,
so we have this grass-fed beef.
You know it has that crunchy, sort of funky flavor.
But we surround that with a lot of fat,
a lot of seriously aged fat.
- So, traditionally a black pudding
is a pork blood sausage, basically.
- Pork blood sausage, yeah.
So this company called Clonakilty
has been making this for over a hundred years,
and it's different than most black puddings,
'cause most black puddings traditionally are
made with only pork and a lot of blood.
This is an all beef black pudding,
and it has a very small percentage of dry blood powder.
This flavor of the black pudding,
it just started to make the meat sing,
just a little bit more.
To me, the bun is the unsung hero of the hamburger.
I didn't want a brioche bun,
so I was painting the streets of London.
I was in Shepherd's Bush,
I noticed the bakery, I walked in,
it was a Malaysian woman,
she was baking these steamed buns,
and I asked her, "can you make this into a hamburger bun?"
And, that was the beginning of the end.
- Okay, well I'm gonna take a seat, start drinking,
and look forward to trying your hamburger.
- Let me see what I can do.
(rock music)
- So here we have the single cheeseburger,
the Bleecker Black.
Look at that, flakes of black pudding dripping of it.
(enjoying eating)
That is outstanding.
Oh my God.
You gotta put aside your expectations
of sort of a classic cheeseburger.
The black pudding, it doesn't dominate the palate,
but it's certainly the thing that hits you first.
It's like this really salty, dark punch,
and you get this texture from the oats.
Its got like a real bite to it,
but then the succulence of the beef comes on,
and you get this sort of tangy, aged flavor.
It's really rather special.
If you've never had black pudding,
or blood sausage, which is popular in almost every culture,
it doesn't taste like blood.
There are definitely dark, savory notes,
and it's definitely kind of funky,
and like offal often is.
It's something you should try.
It is an important part of cooking,
and an important part of eating all of the animal.
Just try the cheeseburger.
Actually, I'm kind of more of a fan
of the single hamburger, especially...
Kind of a perfect little package right there.
(rock music)
(enjoying eating)
I thought I would prefer this because it's like a pure,
fast food style hamburger,
but I have to admit that I'm kinda drawn to this,
even though I prefer the single patty.
Maybe my idea would be a single patty,
with black pudding on it.
Okay well, I came here skeptical,
and came here knowing this would be a great hamburger,
but really thought I would gravitate toward the classic,
American style hamburger, but, indeed, I have actually
fallen in love with this double patty stack,
with a nice wedge of black pudding in the middle of it.
It's not something I really expect to order in America,
but here, in England, I think it's perfectly acceptable,
and indeed if you come to Bleecker,
I recommend you get the Bleecker Black Burger.
Thanks very much for watching from the Spitalfield Market.
We'll see you on the next episode.
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