David Williams, Freelance WriterEVERYTIME I ASKED about the ingredients of haggis the response was the same -- a smile, followed by: "You really don't want to know."
This of course only fuelled my curiosity. I wanted to know.
Why were the Scots being so secretive about their national dish, a large, spicy sausage traditionally eaten at Christmas and in January?
That was as much as I knew until The pieces of the puzzle slowly started to fall into place. "Haggis is basically spiced meat mixed with oatmeal and onion," explained Glasgow University student Mark Russell.
"It's stuffed into sheep's guts, but you don't eat the gut," he went on, choosing his words carefully. "Then it's boiled to a nice, crumbly texture that just melts in your mouth. It's very nice, actually. You should try it," he added with an impish smile before patting me on the back and dashing off.
Sheep guts and all, it didn't sound too bad. Still, I wasn't entirely convinced. Then the next day, leafing through a local food magazine I stumbled on the truth -- the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
The spiced meat, while it also comes from the sheep, isn't exactly mutton. The 'pluck' as the Scots call the meaty stuffing, is really sheep offal - the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and basically anything else that's handy - cooked and finely chopped.
Haggis is thought to have originated among Scottish peasants who couldn't afford to let any part of the sheep go to waste.
"They'd kill an animal and use every part - nose to tail," said Alan Ackroyd, operator of haggis retail stores in Scotland and England.
But for all the fuss over their national dish, emerging historical evidence is suggesting that haggis isn't entirely Scottish, and that it may have in fact originated elsewhere in Europe and copied by the Scots.
In Sweden, a form of haggis called 'polsa' is still eaten. Hungarians, too, have a version of haggis called 'hurka', and the French 'boudin' or black pudding is also remarkably like the Scottish delicacy.
The Scots are more than a little peeved by suggestions that haggis isn't entirely theirs. Perhaps that helps to explain the possessiveness and secrecy about the ingredients.
Still, my suspicion is that the Scots fear that no people may not want to eat haggis when they learn that it's made of bits of meat that are usually thrown away.
Fret not oh Scots, isn't that basically what the American delight called hot dogs is made of? And just look how universal it has become.
For the record though, I don't eat hot dogs. So haggis was definitely out.
David Williams recently returned from a trip to Scotland.
