Haggis: From the stomach to the stomach.

Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish that looks like a big sausage composed of a type of pudding made from the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep or lamb combined with oats, suet, onion, herbs and spices. The mixture is packed into the animal’s stomach and boiled for one to two hours.

Some food historians agree that it was a peasant food and a popular dish for poor people because it was very cheap for being made from parts of a sheep (the most common livestock in Scotland). It would have been a wonderful way to feed a group and to make sure no meat went to waste.

Haggis is traditionally served with Tatties (mashed potatoes) and Neeps (turnip or swede) at Burns supper, every year on January 25th, to commemorate the born of a Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, who wrote the poem “Address to Haggis” in which he declares his love for the “great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race” and glorifies what was a poor man’s food into a dish greater than any French ragout or fricassee, that’s why he became a national hero and haggis’ profile soon soared.

Perhaps more than any other food, Haggis has an exceptionally bad reputation. Even importing real Scottish Haggis to the United States has been illegal since 1971 because of a ban on foods containing sheep’s lungs.

In my opinion is a really disgusting dish and I would never taste it, not just because I’m vegetarian but if the innards haven’t a good cleaning could transmit virus to the people who eat them, because some filters the “trash” of the animal’s body and could have residues. Anyway I think is a very curious food and I dare you to taste it! 

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