The Scottish Haggis

The Scottish Haggis

Haggis is probably the least understood but best known Scottish dish. Haggis is our national dish but one which a lot of Scots will not eat. Reason? they don’t like the idea of the foods that go to make up its bulk and taste.

Robert Burns our national poet wrote a poem to the haggis referring to it as “the Chieftain o’ the pudding race”. Many say that if it wasn’t for that address to the Haggis few people outside of Scotland and Scottish culture would even have heard of the dish. Even although Rabbie Burns died in 1796 the Toast to the Haggis is still said throughout the world particularly on Burns Night 25th January of each year. We give the full version of the “To the Haggis” poem on our ScottishJerk.com website along with sample format for those wanting to hold a Burns Night Dinner including a menu template including the famous Selkirk Grace along with the order of toasts and responses that should be included.

On less formal occasions like almost every night of the week all year round most Scots COULD buy what is referred to as a haggis supper. This is simply deep fried haggis with chips (outside of Scotland “chips” are called French fries) and sold mainly as a take-away meal along with Haggis burgers. You can also buy the haggis in many supermarkets although numbers available on the shelf do seem to increase in mid January then fall away again when sales tend to decrease. However this does not tell us what is the secret recipe that makes Haggis so special.

Ask a Scot and they will tell you a Haggis is a small animal with its two left legs shorter than the right legs. Females have the short leg on the right so you tell them apart easier! Darwin explained this under the survival of the fittest theory by pointing out that this difference in leg length allowed them to run in circles around steep Scottish highland hills.

But joking apart this food is traditionally made up of mainly the cheapest parts of a sheep so it was always particularly popular amongst the poorer people of the land. The main ingredients tend to be oats and several different meats usually mutton, offal (i.e. heart, liver and lungs) all minced (or ground) along with onion and suet all heavily spiced according to different traditions. This mix is then mixed with stock before being stuffed inside a sheep’s stomach then boiled and served.

To suit modern day tastes the sheep’s stomach is usually replaced with an artificial casing and vegetarian friendly ingredients will often replace the meat and offal.

Note it will be almost impossible to get the true traditional haggis in some countries for example the USA it is not possible to sell lung for human consumption. If you want to know more about this traditional Scottish dish please come to our Everything Scottish website ScottishJerk.com

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