LOVED by many, hated by some, the iconic Bury black pudding has been produced in the town for over 200 years and is enjoyed across the globe.

Here are ten top facts about Bury black pudding:

1. Mention of the savoury foodstuff was first recorded in 800BC in Homer's Odyssey in the line: “We’ve got these goat paunches on the fire, stuffed with fat and blood, ready for supper.”

2. The oldest detailed black pudding recipe is thought to come from the Apicius ­— a collection of Roman cookery recipes compiled during the late fourth and fifth centuries AD. The technique uses lengths of intestine, rather than stomach, as the container; and contains chopped hard-boiled egg yolks, pine kernels, onions, and leeks.

3. Black pudding making was common in the middle ages when even relatively poor families would often own a pig. When slaughtered, the pigs blood would be blended with minced onions, diced fat, ginger, cloves, pepper and stuffed into lengths of intestine.

4. Black pudding was enjoyed by rich and poor and was even fit for royalty. Extravagant breakfast banquets held by King Henry VIII at Hampton Court notably included the foodstuff on the menu.

5. By the 17th century consumption of black pudding had become an extremely controversial subject. One such early modern objector was famous physicist and polymath Isaac Newton who is alleged to have abstained from eating the pudding on account of an Old Testament prohibition against eating blood.

6. Although it is now synonymous with the town, historians believe the first Bury black pudding was made at Casewell's Pudding Shop on Union Street, in 1810.

7. Marag Dubh ­is the Scots Gaelic name of a Highland black pudding variant first made by Stornoway crofters who had to ensure every part of the small number of livestock they kept was utilised to the full.

8. If you thought you loved black pudding your appreciation comes nowhere near to that of a trans-European black pudding appreciation society. Known as The Confrerie des Chevaliers du Goute Boudin, or Brotherhood of the Knights of the Black Pudding, the group host an annual competition at Mortagne au Perche in the Orne, France. First held in 1963, the contest invites pudding producers from all over the world to submit their latest sausage creations.

9. If culinary creativity isn't your forte then you can try your hand at the annual World Black Pudding Throwing Championships, held in Ramsbottom. The competition requires contestants to throw black puddings at a six metre high platform balancing Yorkshire puddings, with the aim of knocking off as many as possible. The story behind the event harks back to an incident during the Wars of the Roses in the 1400s, when according to legend the opposing Lancastrian and Yorkist houses ran out of ammunition and threw food at each other.

10. Black pudding is actually a very healthy dish. It is packed with protein, iron and zinc; essentially carb-free and has few calories ­— especially when compared with other types of sausage.