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Tonight is Burn’s Night, a celebration of the colourful Scots Poet, Robbie Burns. One is his most famous poems was Address to a Haggis:

” Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang’s my arm. “

I am not going to give you the other 6 verses, but it does go on to describe the haggis’ buttocks and all manner of other things. The haggis has been a thing of folklore for centuries, even with tales of which leg was longer than the other.

However, there is strong evidence that the dish was not originally from Scotland. According to the BBC, “Historian Catherine Brown said she found references to the dish inside a 1615 book called The English Hus-Wife. The title would pre-date Robert Burns’ poem To A Haggis, which brought fame to the delicacy, by at least 171 years.”

I know of a great English Haggis, made by our butchers, Ian Barkers, in Rolleston on Dove. In all fairness to junior, he did learn his craft after spending many years in Scotland and made haggis while he was there.

Haggis is one of those dishes that really does use up what was left over, should be cooked simply and tastes delicious. Even for one night a year, this British dish earns it’s rightful place at the table.