Haggis: Scotland’s most famous recipe
The most famous food from Scotland is haggis. But if you haven’t had it, don’t worry . There’s probably a good reason.
First, the traditional recipe is banned in many places, including the United States. Second, haggis includes parts of the animal that we don’t typically eat.
Still, the Scots proudly hang onto their local recipe , and they even have a traditional night to eat it—January 25—after a Scottish poet who made the dish famous. If you’re not in Scotland on January 25, you can still order it on other days of the year.
What is it? Traditional haggis is made of the liver , stomach , tongue , heart , and sometimes lungs of sheep or cows . It’s mixed with spices , onion, oatmeal , and animal fat —all before being boiled inside the lining of a sheep’s stomach .
Hungry yet?
The good news about haggis is that you don’t have to follow the traditional recipe. Haggis today can be a little different. For example, haggis can be prepared without the lungs. That’s what’s banned in the United States; no lungs can be used in any food product in the U.S. or Canada. Even some Scottish recipes omit the lungs today.
Haggis is one of those, “anything goes” types of recipes. To make good haggis, you don’t need to follow strict proportions ; as one butcher says, “I use whatever guts I have on hand.” And the lining of a sheep’s stomach is not always available , so haggis can be cooked in sausage casing or just baked in a pan .
Haggis has a very earthy , meaty flavor . The high fat content makes it a savory dish . The combination of liver and oats produces a nutty flavor and aroma . The meat is ground and mixed together, so you don’t taste the individual parts.
Haggis has a soft, moist texture . During the cooking process, the oatmeal soaks up the fat. If you’ve tasted meatloaf in the United States, it’s kind of like that, but softer. Haggis is typically served with turnips and potatoes —or, as the Scottish say, with neeps and tatties.
Most people’s reaction to haggis is—yuck. Most Western diets no longer include internal organs like the liver and heart. But the haggis recipe dates back hundreds of years, to a time when no part of an animal could be wasted . Even today, many Scots say that haggis is an affordable way to serve a protein-packed meal to the family.
For most people, the “yuck” factor is less from the taste than from picturing the ingredients and the strange cooking process. But if you’re an adventurous eater —or if you can just not think about the ingredients—then you might like it. Besides, the liver and heart are full of vitamins and nutrients . The celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain loved haggis; he called it “one of life’s great pleasures.”
If you want to enjoy this great pleasure, you have a few options. Your best bet is to go to Scotland; they have it available at the pubs. You can get it prepared in England, too. And if you’re in the U.K., you can order it online; it comes in the sausage casing, so all you have to do is cook it.
Outside the U.K. is more complicated. The traditional recipe, with the lungs, can’t be shipped across international borders . In the E.U., the United States, and Canada, you may be able to find imported haggis, with a special international recipe that excludes the sheep’s lungs. If you look hard enough, you may be able to find locally-prepared haggis at specialty butcher shops , grocery stores, Celtic festivals , and possibly in restaurants.
I did a quick search for haggis availability outside Scotland, and here’s a sample of what I found. A butcher shop in the Chicago suburbs makes its own haggis. A Celtic festival in Pennsylvania has a haggis-eating competition. British grocery stores in Canada have imported haggis in sausage casings for you to boil at home. And Amazon sells it in cans .
If you do decide to have haggis, you might want to wash it down with an ice-cold Irn-Bru. That’s the national soda of Scotland; it’s bright orange and has a sweet, tangy flavor.
Jeff’s take
Yeah, I’m going to say “no thanks” to that haggis eating competition.
I’ve been to Scotland just once, for about a week, when I was a student. And I had haggis. I don’t remember it tasting bad; it just tasted strange. At the pubs there, you can either get it as a full meal or as a side dish . I had it as a side. Anway, it was not as bad as I was expecting , but I would not have wanted the full meal portion !
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