Haggis – Scotland’s “Inedible Delicacy”: Renewed Attempts To Lift US Import Ban:
The Scots have many jokes about their national dish. Here’s one: At a contest on Robert Burns Night – which is held every January 25th to celebrate the birthday of the country’s revered 18th Century poet – there were three prizes. The third was a haggis dinner for two, the second was a single haggis and if you won, you didn’t have to eat the haggis at all.
Fiona Burrell, the Principal of the Edinburgh New Town Cookery School, has acknowledged that it’s difficult to describe the ingredients “without making them sound not very nice”. John Davidson, an Aberdeenshire butcher, admits that the thought of eating “gushing entrails” can put people off – but claims that “everything in there is fit for human consumption”.
The US Department of Agriculture, however, strongly disagrees: For the past 44 years, it has prohibited the import and sale of this product on the basis that it contravenes Food Safety & Inspection Service (FSIS) regulations by containing “inedible sheep lungs”. As The Guardian’s Scotland Editor, Severin Carrell, reported on 14th November, a possible solution has now emerged which could “unlock the huge potential US market worth millions of pounds for haggis producers” – but only if the sheep lungs element is removed from the recipe. Many Scottish haggis makers, though, will be unhappy with having to omit 10% of the dish’s components, which in their view “is essential for the flavour”.
The main feature of a traditional haggis is the sheep’s “pluck” (its heart, liver and lungs). These, says the BBC’s food website, should be boiled for about two hours, then minced and put in a bowl with finely chopped onions, oatmeal and seasoning. The resulting mixture should be spooned into the extracted sheep stomach, so it’s just over half full: “Sew up the stomach with a strong thread and prick a couple of times so it doesn’t explode while it’s being cooked for three hours in a pan of boiling water”. When it’s ready, it should be served with “neeps” (mashed swede or turnip) and “tatties” (mashed potatoes).
For the Scots, eating haggis is much more than just a meal. On Burns Night especially, but also at Christmas & the New Year, it’s invariably transformed into a formal ceremonial occasion. The guests (as BBC Arts has noted) are expected to stand and applaud as the haggis is “brought in on a silver platter by a procession comprising the chef, a bag-pipe player, the whisky-bearer and a speaker who has been given the honour of first stabbing the haggis with a “skean dhu” (highland dagger)” then making a brief but entertaining address to the contents. The guests are subsequently prompted to sing a Scottish melody and raise a glass of whisky to their food before settling down to consume it.
The BBC points out that, although haggis is “the star of Burns Night”, it has become a dish favoured all year round, and not just in Scotland”. According to the Daily Telegraph, “the English now eat more haggis than the Scots do”. Macsween, a family company based in Edinburgh, confirm that they “export a huge volume of haggis down south” and that it sells particularly well in London and the southeast of England. Macsween produce “1,000 tons of haggis every year – enough for about five million portions”. Up to 1.5% of their sales are in continental Europe. mainly to France, Germany and Holland – though, in addition to the USA, they are still prohibited from sending their meat products to Australia, Norway and Singapore.
Anyone who is tempted to try this concoction for the first time during the Festive Season can buy 454g of “Macsween Traditional Haggis” at Sainsburys (£2.50), Tesco (£3,00) or Asda (£3.30). A 392g can of Grants Premium Haggis can also be obtained from Amazon at a cost of £5.25, including delivery. A word of warning: If you leave the can in a saucepan of boiling water for too long, it’s likely to explode and you’ll spend the rest of your holiday cleaning the residue off your kitchen walls and ceiling.