Scottish Haggis the traditional Scottish food cheap and filling.
By randomguy. Filed in Random |
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. We give the full version of the "Address To the Haggis" poem on ScottishJerk.com. 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.
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. 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. 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.By tradition the ingredients are mixed from several different meats including the heart, liver and lungs (the latter is often called lights) together with some mutton, onion, suet fat and arrange of spices and herbs to local taste and custom. 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