Is blood drinkable or edible?

Blood consists of more than 80% water, and is drinkable.
Besides mosquitoes, ticks and leeches also three species of South American bats eat blood.
The Masai in Kenya and Suri in Ethiopia have bovine blood drinking rituals.
The Spartans got blood soup during their military training, with bread and ((fresh) pork) blood. In peacetime with bile, to let flavor it worse, so the soldiers longed for war.

In different countries is used for soup blood of pig, cattle, sheep, duck, and goat.

If I have a bleeding wound, and don’t have care stuff at hand, I put my finger too (instinctively) in my mouth.
And many people get off on a steak, cooked medium or medium rare, or saignant.
If you have a wound in your mouth (gum) you could ingest parasites using fresh blood. But what comes in your digestive tract, is largely degraded.
Our body is unable to digest sufficiently quickly large amounts of fresh blood (protein and iron). Some bats can.

Collect blood from ten pigeons and stir in a lemon juice to prevent clotting.
Pass this blood through a fine sieve and mix it with a dozen egg yolks of which one is sure that they are well fresh. Add to this mixture a good scoop cream and some lumps of butter. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the beaten egg whites into the mixture.
Fry gently in a pan with two pats of butter as one prepares an omelet.

And do you know the translation for an often acclaimed steak saignant?
(I guess bleeding, or bloody is a reasonable description.)
Shot game that’s slaughtered is not bled. The blood that still remained in veins is just prepared along.

During the war, slaughterhouses traded blood that was processed in dishes. In Amsterdam you could receive with a prescription from the doctor a cup (calf) blood from the abattoir.

Bleeding out, to empty
Once the pig is beaten down (or shot) are cut the arteries of the throat, just above the sternum. An experienced butcher finds them with one sting, a beginner will possible have to use a neck cut. (One of my tutors said: ‘If you feel unsure, just cut off his head.’)
Stand at the back of the animal. Place one knee on the head behind the ear. The other leg, you place in front of the head, stretching the jaw and throat. With one hand you take the (upper) for leg and pull it up well. With the other hand you can stab. Approximately 10 cm in front of the sternum is incised in the direction of the heart. It is not necessary to stab the knife deep into the chest, veins lay for the chest at a crossroad.

The intention is that the animal is dead very quickly, and the blood as much as possible out of the body. With each heartbeat, blood is strongly pumped out. Catch it in a low bowl. Keep the wound with a finger closed to empty the bowl in time in a bucket. To get the last blood out of the body was often vigorously pressed the ribs (like a heart massage) and pumped with the front leg.

Pig blood is traditionally used for black pudding ​​or blood sausage
Because there is also fat and meat needed for the processing, the blood is put aside temporarily. But because it quickly lumps, solidify and curdle, it was stirred very regulary (by hand or with a wooden spoon).
Later, a butcher convinced me that it could be done different, and that proved to be correct. Let the blood just stand covered until you begin to process and then (mix) blend it. You can still and in the same way make perfect blood pudding and sausage.

For the pudding heart, lungs, leftover bacon fat, onions and stale bread were rotated through the meat grinder. This is mixed with blood, pepper, salt (and other spices, to taste) to a thin mush which is then done in cleaned intestine through the meat grinder, (with a funnel set-up to draw the intestine on). The sausage may not be thick, otherwise they will burst later.
The Romans did in their black pudding also hard-boiled egg yolks, chopped leeks, chopped pine nuts and wine.
The beginning of the gut you obviously tied with a string (or knot), and then you do that with every end too.
During the filling of the (also for cooking- and white- ) sausages you make every 15 cm a (double) twist in the gut, so you get a notch, or partition in sausages.
The rings black pudding are then 15 to 20 minutes boiled in water on a gentle heat, causing the proteins coagulate and the sausages are firmer. You can in advance with a needle here and there prick a hole in the sausage, which allows the pressure to release so they will not or less burst during cooking.
You can also 'cook' sausages in preserving jars (without water in the jar), so you can keep them for some time.
(While baking sausages, the water present forms steam that wants to escape. This often causes cracks. That also can be avoided by pricking some holes in them.)

Scrapple (balkenbrij) is an old Belgian, German and Dutch dish made ​​in broth (all kept cooking liquid from the slaughter processing) (and sometimes blood) boiled scraps and waste of the pig. Include milled head or ribs, (fried) bacon, liver, or a knuckle of ham, leftovers, failed sausages and buckwheat flour (or wheat flour), and special spices (allspice and mixed herbs) are incorporated.
Composition and herbs vary by region.

Buckwheat flour you have to keep adding and stirring or kneading until the spoon remain stable upright. Really hard work!
The slurry was hung in a linen cloth on a beam to stiffen. But that can just as well in a bowl.

Brown bread and apple sauce with it, great!...

Difference pudding - scrapple
Both are made ​​with meat residues. Also organ meats. Each region has its own recipes and names.
In black pudding is always blood. The content is in a soft-boiled sausage, and baked later.
In scrapple is buckwheat (and / or flour or bread). It is molded in a form (or cloth) to stiffen.