Scottish Haggis understand our traditional 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 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. 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. Some travel agents will still try to sell tourists tickets for haggis hunting tours and then take them to the local butchers shop.
In reality the haggis is made up of the cheapest cuts of meat available usually a sheep making it popular for poorer families in ancient times (although venison haggis is eaten in some areas). 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.
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