Haggis our national Scottish food 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 poem 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. There is also a sample format for those wanting to hold a Burns Night Dinner. The menu template includes the Selkirk Grace our famous Scottish Grace.
On less formal occasions such as 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” may be called French fries) and sold mainly as a take-away meal along with Haggis burgers. 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! Charles Darwin would have been able to point to this survival of the fittest theory and show scientifically that the shorter legs on one side allows them to run faster round the sides of steep hills in order to escape larger animals like man. Many tourists are very disappointed when they are unable to book on Haggis hunting expeditions at local travel agents.
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.
Today you will also find the sheep’s stomach has been replaced with an artificial cellulose casing and several vegetarian versions of the haggis are being made available in supermarkets.
In many countries it will not be possible to get a truly traditional haggis e.g. the USA where the lung of animals has been ruled to be unfit for human consumption. We have covered the haggis in more detail including its role in Burns Night celebrations on our Scottish culture website http://ScottishJerk.com