Haggis is probably the least understood but undoubtedly the best known Scottish food. However a lot of Scots will not eat Haggis.
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 poem few people outside of Scotland and Scottish culture would even have heard of the dish. Today over 210 years after the death of Robert Burns that poem is still said throughout the world especially on 25th January when we hold our Burns Night celebrations. The same section of the website includes a template menu for those looking to organise their own Burns Night supper. The menu template includes the Selkirk Grace our famous Scottish Grace.
The haggis can also be eaten as a Haggis Supper at local take-away shops. This is simply deep fried haggis with chipped potatoes (French fries outside of Scotland). 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. So what is that makes our Scottish Haggis 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. Some travel agents will still try to sell tourists tickets for haggis hunting tours and then take them to the local butchers shop.
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 Scottish culture website ScottishJerk.com
