![]() ![]() According to one poll, 33 percent of American visitors to Scotland believed haggis to be an animal. When a chieftain or laird required an animal to be slaughtered for meat (whether sheep or cattle) the workmen were allowed to keep the offal as their share.Ī joke sometimes maintained is that a haggis is a small Scottish animal with longer legs on one side, so that it can run around the steep hills of the Scottish highlands without falling over. Other speculations have been based on Scottish slaughtering practices. They used the ingredients that were most readily available in their homes and conveniently packaged them in a sheep's stomach allowing for easy transportation during the journey. When the men left the Highlands to drive their cattle to market in Edinburgh, the women would prepare rations for them to eat during the long journey down through the glens. One is that the dish originates from the days of the old Scottish cattle drovers. In the absence of hard facts as to haggis' origins, popular folklore has provided some notions. Chopping up the lungs and stuffing the stomach with them and whatever fillers might have been on hand, then boiling the assembly – probably in a vessel made from the animal's hide – was one way to make sure these parts were not wasted. The liver and kidneys could be grilled directly over a fire, but this treatment was unsuitable for the stomach, intestines, or lungs. ![]() In her book The Haggis: A Little History, Dickson Wright suggests that haggis was invented as a way of cooking quick-spoiling offal near the site of a hunt, without the need to carry along an additional cooking vessel. She cites etymologist Walter William Skeat as further suggestion of possible Scandinavian origins: Skeat claimed that the hag– element of the word is derived from the Old Norse haggw or the Old Icelandic hoggva ( höggva meaning 'to chop' in modern Icelandic ), Modern Scots hag, meaning 'to hew' or strike with a sharp weapon, relating to the chopped-up contents of the dish. Ĭlarissa Dickson Wright says that it "came to Scotland in a longship even before Scotland was a single nation". Haggis was "born of necessity, as a way to utilize the least expensive cuts of meat and the innards as well". It contains a section entitled "Skill in Oate meale": "The use and vertues of these two severall kinds of Oate-meales in maintaining the Family, they are so many (according to the many customes of many Nations) that it is almost impossible to recken all" and then proceeds to give a description of "oat-meale mixed with blood, and the Liver of either Sheepe, Calfe or Swine, maketh that pudding which is called the Haggas or Haggus, of whose goodnesse it is in vaine to boast, because there is hardly to be found a man that doth not affect them." (Gervase Markham, The English Huswife)įood writer Alan Davidson suggests that the ancient Romans were the first known to have made products of the haggis type. William Dunbar, Flyting of Dunbar and KennedyĪn early printed recipe for haggis appears in 1615 in The English Huswife by Gervase Markham. The gallowis gaipis eftir thy graceles gruntill,Īs thow wald for ane haggeis, hungry gled. Thy fowll front had, and he that Bartilmo flaid The first known written recipes for a dish of the name, made with offal and herbs, are as "hagese", in the verse cookbook Liber Cure Cocorum dating from around 1430 in Lancashire, north west England, and, as "hagws of a schepe" from an English cookbook also of c. However, the recipes as known and standardised now are distinctly Scottish. Haggis is popularly assumed to be of Scottish origin, but many countries have produced similar dishes, albeit with different names. Haggis is traditionally served with " neeps and tatties", boiled and mashed separately, and a dram (a glass of Scotch whisky), especially as the main course of a Burns supper. It is even the national dish, as a result of Scots poet Robert Burns' poem " Address to a Haggis" of 1786. ![]() 1430, the dish is considered traditionally of Scottish origin. Īlthough the name "hagws" or "hagese" was first recorded in England c. It is believed that food similar to haggis-perishable offal quickly cooked inside an animal's stomach, all conveniently available after a hunt-was eaten from ancient times. According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: "Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour". Haggis ( Scottish Gaelic: taigeis) is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now an artificial casing is often used instead.
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