Here are a few of Darina Allen's favourite offal recipes

I’VE just tasted meringue, macaroons and brownies made from fresh pigs blood — is there no end to what I’ll do in the name of food research?

The meringues and macaroons tasted great, in fact there’s no way I would have known they were anything but chocolate. The brownies, I didn’t love, they tasted very peculiar.

Where you might ask did I taste these bites? It was at the Oxford Food Symposium and by the way Jennifer McLagan, who read a paper on “Blood, not so simple”, can buy fresh blood any day of the week at her local butcher in Toronto.