" Warm, Reekin Rich ", Burns, Haggis And The Brave Scots Who Ate it

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
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What's not to dance about? The Haggis is done.

There's an awesome ' poetical cook book ' of the era. Some genius scoured poet references to food and dug up recipes for them. Guess what Burns managed to include in one of his? Whomever compiled the collection made a small blunder- please, please, it's ' Scots ', not ' Scotch '. Oh well, the recipe looks right.

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" Trenching your gushing entrail bright ". Burns was having some fun- hadn't come across this poem before.

It's an unlikely recipe to have found favor in camp. Please note with all this Scots DNA I've never been intrepid enough to try it either. Still, from what I can find Haggis made the trip across The Pond along with all our tartans and sheep. When you ask my mother about Haggis she'll give you an ice blue stare that forbids further conversation. There's a story there somewhere.

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I ' think ' ' draught ' is anything residing in intestines on butchering day.

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Thank you, Mrs. MacIver. Maybe.
 
The "pluck" of the sheep gets minced with oats, suet, onions, etc. etc. and boiled again in the "paunch" of the animal.

The "pluck" includes the lungs. When these are boiled, the esophagus is left outside the kettle so any impurities contained within burble out as it cooks... The heart, liver, lungs, etc. then get minced up.

The version of haggis I ate was made by a reputable sausage manufacturer from the Lothians, not the home-made kind. I liked it.
 
My former church celebrated with a Scottish theme on St. Andrew's Day. A congregation member donated a can of haggis for a raffle. We gave every attendee a free ticket when they entered, and then told them they would have to pay $1 to turn a ticket back in. After hearing the haggis ingredient list, all but two did. Funniest fund raiser I ever ran.
 
The "pluck" of the sheep gets minced with oats, suet, onions, etc. etc. and boiled again in the "paunch" of the animal.

The "pluck" includes the lungs. When these are boiled, the esophagus is left outside the kettle so any impurities contained within burble out as it cooks... The heart, liver, lungs, etc. then get minced up.

The version of haggis I ate was made by a reputable sausage manufacturer from the Lothians, not the home-made kind. I liked it.


You're not making it easier to contemplate taking the Haggis plunge. And you're a very intrepid person. Snakes leave me unmoved, lizards, spiders and most of the things we tend to find objectionable same. There's something about Haggis.....perhaps that whole pluck thing.

Remember the ice bucket challenge? There's one. The Haggis Challenge.

@ami , you know how you and the boys pick era recipes to try........? :giggle:
 
My wife likes vegetarian haggis a lot! She often had it for breakfast, sometimes as part of the "full Scottish" with every other Scots breakfast delicacy... I'd just have plain oatmeal with salt... usually.

In Scotland there are all sorts of wee haggis delicacies, like a frozen food called "Jac-o-Bites" that are like haggis mcnuggets, I think.

But haggis made by a sausage manufacturer with a side of mashed 'neeps an' tatties is actually quite good. With or without the uisgea-beatha. On the other hand, like the German statesman said, "the German people must never know how sausage is made or how laws are passed..." so I'm glad I didn't try to make it myself! I'd probably not care for it if I had.

Still, I found "chinchulines a la parrilla" a far grimmer experience--perhaps due to the simplicity of preparation?-- no matter how much lemon juice got squirted on them, or how much red wine I chased each bite with... :cautious::help:
 
Jac-O-Bites, OH gee whiz, I'm crying! That's the funniest take on commerce I've ever heard. Son and family live somewhere under that castle- he just got the job of tracking one down and sending me a photo.

Hmm, buried shark? It does sound awful but until I've tasted it scrapple is still at the top of my list. Like decayed sawdust marinated in a sauce composed of dissolved books.
 
I have never tried it either despite being a proud Scotsman! Not all of us Scots like Haggis & Whiskey:smile:


I'm a little convinced they pull out things like haggis, tripe and blood pudding for tourists. " HEY we got another one! " . There's a one way mirror somewhere in the eatery- they sell tickets to watch all we Yanks out there eating this stuff. That's where they serve steak.
 
I'm a little convinced they pull out things like haggis, tripe and blood pudding for tourists.

My old Grandfather used to eat tripe & it looked as disgusting as you would imagine. He also loved to eat a cows tongue which was just as bad. My gran says it used to stink the house out for days. Black pudding is where sheep's blood is mixed with oatmeal, it's a lot more edible than haggis, tongue & tripe IMHO :smile:

We do like to play on our sterotype tho to bring in the tourists:smile:
 
My old Grandfather used to eat tripe & it looked as disgusting as you would imagine. He also loved to eat a cows tongue which was just as bad. My gran says it used to stink the house out for days. Black pudding is where sheep's blood is mixed with oatmeal, it's a lot more edible than haggis, tongue & tripe IMHO :smile:

We do like to play on our sterotype tho to bring in the tourists:smile:


Sorry to keep this going but you said " cow tongue ". It took awhile to get used to shopping daily, this was an Exmoor village- by some misfortune the green grocer's shop was after the butchers when going down High Street. I still haven't found vegetable as lush and good as anything found in a village green grocer's. BUT you'd just lost all interest in food- shop always had some disembodied and massive head hanging in the window, cow or pig. Below that was a longgggg row of cow tongues, all rolled up on display.

Began to understand vegetarians.
 
Tacos de lengua are made with cow's tounge... Mighty good! As for tripe, this may be found in almost every national cuisine, and I can't say I've ever uh, erm, found them palatable outside of, say, sausage. Menudo and mondongo are tripe dishes, the former Mexican and said to be a hang over cure has hominy corn, while the latter uses garbanzos.

Black pudding is great stuff! In Spain one can find morcilla blood sausage made with rice that is delicious and often served in fried slices with fried eggs and french fries...

In Tampere Finland there is Mustamakkara made with blood and rye and dipped in lingonberry jam... Delicious! although it is easily one of the most hideious-looking foods one might every see...
 
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Black pudding is great stuff!


You're a brave man. The words ' black' and ' pudding ' glued together seemed like a warning even before they told me what on earth it was.

It is a sign of how wealthy we have become that we find these dishes so outlandish.
Not too many years ago our ancestors had to use every edible part of their animals just to survive.


Yes but they still make scrapple! Our survival by means of other dishes has been assured yet there it is, gray, gelatinous and terrifying.
 
It is a sign of how wealthy we have become that we find these dishes so outlandish.
Not too many years ago our ancestors had to use every edible part of their animals just to survive.

True that! And not so long ago... My late grandmother from Fife told me about some of the Depression-era sea foods that were harvested... various types of "shellfish" and edible seaweeds named redware, sloke, dulse, etc. Some foodie historians have claimed that the reputation of bad food in Great Britain owes much to wartime rationing.

As for haggis, should folks want to get their Burns night on:

Good Housekeeping UK haggis recipe

BBC Hairy Bikers' Haggis neeps an' tatties with whiskey sauce recipe
 
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