Free the Haggis!
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.
Just in time for the traditional January 25th Robert Burns Supper, a 21-year old ban on Scottish Haggis imports has been lifted!
For the past two decades, Americans of Scottish descent ‑ of whom there are at least 6 million ‑ have been forced to celebrate Burns’ night without a true haggis, much to their distress.
There are stories of Scots smuggling in a haggis for their starving cousins, risking deportation in the process. Others are said to have secretly tried to create homemade, bootleg haggis, desperate to sample that particularly peppery concoction.
Meanwhile, butchers in the US have tried, and failed, to make their own versions of the pudding without using the vital ingredient: sheep. “It was a silly ban which meant a lot of people have never tasted the real thing,” said Margaret Frost, of the Scottish American Society in Ohio. “We have had to put up with the US version, which is made from beef and is bloody awful.”
You can read the entire article here.
That’s all well and sonsie, but what the hell is Haggis really?
Haggis is essentially sheep’s offal; the lungs, heart, and liver – minced with spices, mixed with oatmeal or breadcrumbs as a binder, stuffed into a sheep’s stomach and boiled in stock. It’s traditionally served with tatties (potatoes) and neeps (turnips) and lashed with black pepper. It tastes, well, it tastes a bit like how you would expect.
In culinary school, I stumbled upon nothing short of a black market Haggis-making operation. In a tiny kitchen in the school’s cellar, a handful of chef instructors and advanced students were making a dozen illicit haggis for a Burns supper with the school brass. I blew off the rest of the day’s classes and joined in, mixing a confidential spice blend into the raw, gamy meat with my hands, trying desperately not to tear the stomach as we filled it up with the mixture.
Late that night, along with copious drams of Highland Park, I had my first taste of Haggis. It tasted of blood, meat and pepper. Men in kilts gave toasts and speeches long into the night. For skipping class to take part in the supper, I was docked a day’s points, but my instructor gave me a half-finished bottle of 18 year old Highland Park to take with me on the long train ride home. It was as much a thank you as it was an initiation.
“And there is a hand, my trusty friend!
And give me a hand of yours!
And we will take a right good-will drink,
For old long past.”
If you don’t have any sheep offal laying around, you can make a pretty tasty vegetarian variation. I’ve made this a couple times at home, it’s easy and makes a great wintertime supper. You can find a great recipe here.