haggis-msg - 12/1/18

Scottish haggis recipes. comments on haggis. Both meat and non-meat items cooked in a sheep's stomach or similar container.

NOTE: See also the files: sausages-msg, organ-meats-msg, lamb-mutton-msg, fd-Scotland-msg, pig-to-sausag-art, livestock-msg, butchering-msg.

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From: LIB_JLC at vax1.utulsa.edu
To: markh at risc
Subject: haggis recipes
Date: 1/9/98

Here's a few recipes: one is quite edible, one may be of interest
if you have access to game, and one is traditional.  They are from
THE SCOTS KITCHEN: ITS TRADITIONS AND LORE WITH OLD-TIME RECIPES by
F. Marian McNeill (London: Blackie & Son Ltd., 1947), a legacy from
my husband's Campbell grandmother.  You can usually get suet, and
sometimes marrow, from a butcher.  If you can't acquire marrow,
substitute an equal amount of butter.  As you can imagine, haggis
is quite fatty, and may be a bit rich for modern tastes.  The fats
do help the assemblage hold together, so if you're going to cut the
amount of fat, be sure not to cut back too much.

HAGGIS ROYAL [From the Minutes of Sederun of the Cleikum Club -
that's what the book says, I've no idea what it means]

Ingredients:  Mutton, suet, beef-marrow, bread-crumbs or oatmeal,
anchovies, parsley, lemon, pepper, cayenne, eggs, red wine.  [The
anchovies and cayenne are, no doubt, optional]

Three pounds of leg of mutton chopped, a pound of suet chopped, a
little, or rather as much beef-marrow as you can spare, the crumb
of a penny loaf (our own nutty-flavoured browned oatmeal, by the
way, far better)[I'd say 1 to 1 1/2 cups of crumbs or toasted
oatmeal], the beat yolks of four eggs, a half-pint of red wine,
three mellow fresh anchovies boned, minced parsley, lemon grate
(grated peel), white pepper, crystals of cayenne to taste -
crystals alone ensure a perfect diffusion of the flavour - blend
the ingredients well, truss them neatly in a veal caul [stomach],
bake in a deep dish, in a quick oven, and turn out. [I'd suggest
375F for 1/2 hour, then turn down to 350F till done]  Serve hot as
fire, with brown gravy, and venison sauce.

DEER HAGGIS
(From the Kitchen of a Highland Chief)

Ingredients:  Deer's heart, liver, and suet, coarse oatmeal,
onions, black pepper, salt, paste [pastry]

Boil the heart and a piece of the liver of a deer.  When cold,
mince the heart very fine and grate a teacupful of the liver.  To
these add a teacupful of coarse oatmeal, previously toasted in the
oven or before the fire, three finely chopped onions, a
tablespoonful of salt, and a strong seasoning of black pepper.  Mix
all well together.  Put into a pudding-basin, cover with paste as
for a beef-steak pudding, and boil for four hours.  Serve in the
basin, very hot. [Basically a top-crust pie]

[The cooking method, I think, is akin to that of cooking pate': you
put the dish either into a double-boiler, or set the dish into a
larger pan of water to boil, or set it into a large pan of water
and put it in the oven, as you would a custard.]

MEG DODD'S HAGGIS [the traditional style everyone thinks of]
"The exact formula by which the Prize Haggis was prepared at the
famous Competition of Haggises held in Edinburgh, when the Cleikum
Haggis carried the stakes"

Ingredients:  Sheep's pluck [lungs, heart, and liver] and paunch,
beef-suet, onions, oatmeal, pepper, salt, cayenne, lemon or
vinegar.

Clean a sheep's pluck thoroughly.  Make incisions in the heart and
liver to allow the blood to flow out, and parboil the whole,
letting the windpipe lie over the side of the pot to permit the
dishcarge of impurities; the water may be changed after a few
minutes' boiling for fresh water.  A half-hour's boiling will be
sufficient; but throw back the half of the liver to boil till it
will grate easily; take the heart, the half of the liver, and part
of the lights [lungs], trimming away all skins and black-looking
parts, and mince them together.  Mince also a pound of good beef-
suet and four or more onions.  Grate the other half of the liver. 
Have a dozen of small onions peeled and scalded in two waters
[twice parboiled] to mix with this mince.  Have ready some finely
ground oatmeal, toasted slowly before the fire for hours, till it
is of a light brown colour and perfectly dry.  Less than two
teacupfuls of meal will do for this quantity of meat.  Spread the
mince on a board and strew the meal lightly over it, with a high
seasoning of pepper, salt, and a little cayenne, first well mixed. 
Have a haggis bag (i.e. a sheep's paunch) perfectly clean, and see
that there be no thin part in it, else your whole labour will be
lost by its bursting.
     Some cooks use two bags, one as an outer case.  Put in the
meat with a half-pint of good beef gravy, or as much strong broth
as will make it a very thick stew.  Be careful not to fill the bag
too full, but allow the meat room to swell; add the juice of a
lemon or a little good vinegar; press out the air and sew up the
bag, prick it with a large neelde when it first swells in the pot
to prevent bursting; let it boil slowly for three hours if large.

"This is a genuine Scotch haggis; the lemon and cayenne may be
omitted, and instead of beef-gravy, a little of the broth in which
the pluck is parboiled may be taken.  A finer haggis may be made by
parboiling and skinning sheep's tongues and kidneys, and
substituting these minced for the most of the lights, and soaked
bread or crisped crumbs for the toasted meal.  There are, moreover,
sundry modern refinements on the above recipe - such as eggs, milk,
pounded biscuit, &c. - but these, by good judges, are not deemed
improvements.  Some cooks use the small fat tripes, as in making
lamb's haggis."

Dunstana Talana the Violet
Northkeep, Ansteorra
Jennifer Carlson
Tulsa, Oklahoma
JLC at vax2.utulsa.edu 

From: ANDERSJC at howdy.princeton.EDU (JANET ANDERSON - Ext 6639)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Haggis
Date: 27 Mar 1996 13:37:19 -0500
Organization: Princeton University

My home parish (outside Philadelphia) used to have "theme 
refreshments" on appropriate Sundays, i.e. on St. David's Day we 
would have Welsh delicacies, and on one St. Andrew's Day somebody
provided a (canned) haggis for those who were brave enough to try it. 
I love exotic foods and figured it couldn't possibly be as bad as its
reputation, so I tried it.

I was wrong.  It was.  Once was enough to last me for the rest of my 
life.

Dorigen

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: nhanger at windhaven.mv.com (Nancy C. Hanger)
Subject: Re: Haggis
Organization: MV Communications, Inc.
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 15:56:12 GMT

"ld. Ian Gourdon/ MKA: Dan Stratton" <agincort at imperium.net> wrote:

>>                 Mors Plumatahaggis, lovely haggis, beautiful haggis...
>haggis, like sex, is wonderful when it's good, and when it's not so good, 
>it's still pretty good...when served with the proper scotch. still let's 
>not forget the third ingredient of a really proper session of the  
>'eating of the haggis', which is mashed 'neeps', eh?     Ian Gourdon

=Tatties= and neeps. And good whiskey. (Always good whiskey....)

And, as someone who despises liver to the point of gagging when it is
even mentioned, I might add, I =adore= good haggis. Good haggis should
be peppery and dry and a delight to the senses. Some of the best I've
ever had was from a small family butcher's in Inverness. I'm obviously
very lucky not to ever have had bad haggis--I hate to think of the
consequences for my hosts <g>.

I think the lesson here is: don't eat haggis outside of Scotland. But
we already knew that, didn't we?

--Branwyn Mwrheyd--

From: dickeney at access1.digex.net (Dick Eney)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Haggis
Date: 29 Mar 1996 21:50:52 -0500
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA

JANET ANDERSON - Ext 6639 <ANDERSJC at howdy.princeton.EDU> wrote:
>My home parish (outside Philadelphia) used to have "theme 
>refreshments" on appropriate Sundays, i.e. on St. David's Day we 
>would have Welsh delicacies, and on one St. Andrew's Day somebody
>provided a (canned) haggis for those who were brave enough to try it. 
>I love exotic foods and figured it couldn't possibly be as bad as its
>reputation, so I tried it.
>
>I was wrong.  It was.  Once was enough to last me for the rest of my 
>life.
>
Jackson has the gout.  Tamar reports that the haggis she had over an open 
fire in the mountains overlooking Loch Ness was quite good.  And 
so was the one I had as an appetizer in Glasgow one evening, but maybe 
that was the mild mustard sauce...

|---------Master Vuong Manh, C.P., Storvik, Atlantia---------|
|----------------(dickeney at access.digex.net)-----------------|

From: ejpiii at delphi.com
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Haggis
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 96 22:12:50 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info at delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)
 
Well, all the Haggis I tried in UK was great, much to my surprise. I am
normally into really spicy stuff, but it was good. All I have had over
here was pretty bad though.
Eddward

From: corun at access4.digex.net (Corun MacAnndra)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Haggis
Date: 2 Apr 1996 06:55:34 -0500
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA

William Underhill <trode at islandnet.com> wrote:
>Nancy C. Hanger (nhanger at windhaven.mv.com) wrote:
>>And, as someone who despises liver to the point of gagging when it is
>>even mentioned, I might add, I =adore= good haggis. Good haggis should
>>be peppery and dry and a delight to the senses. Some of the best I've
>>ever had was from a small family butcher's in Inverness. I'm obviously
>>very lucky not to ever have had bad haggis--I hate to think of the
>>consequences for my hosts <g>.
>>
>>I think the lesson here is: don't eat haggis outside of Scotland. But
>>we already knew that, didn't we?
>
> Oh, say not so, milady! I have had good, in fact, excellent haggis right
>here (in An Tir). Granted, it was home-made, not boughten, but it was
>definitely outside of Scotland. Of course, there was cock-a-leekie pie,
>taties and bashed 'neeps, as well as a 40 oz. bottle of Glenmorangie for
>after. We even made a point of reading "To A Haggis", which, though not
>period, certainly lent to the general "Scottishness" of the occasion (not
>an event, a family birthday party).

I have been told that there is a law in Scotland that states that haggis
served in restaurants must be made in the intestine rather than the stomach.
So what you are getting is, in essence, a sausage. The intestine casing
would not have the same flavour as the stomach (or tripe as it's called).
I can't verify that this law is on the books, and I don't even recall who
told me at this point. But if true, then it would slant one's opinion of
haggis.

Now I will add that I've never been to Scotland (though that will change),
and have no desire to eat haggis in any form. My Lady, who is in Scotland
now, had occsion to attend the annual Robert Burns dinner at St. Andrews.
The traditional meal is haggis, and she claims it is vile. Still in all,
it's a matter of personal taste.

In service,
Corun

===============================================================================
   Corun MacAnndra   | 
 Dark Horde by birth | 		   Gort, Klaatu mirabile dictu
   Moritu by choice  | 			   from The Day The Earth Spoke Latin

From: s.krossa at aberdeen.ac.uk (Sharon Krossa)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Haggis
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 09:29:45 +0000
Organization: Phuture PhuDs

[My apologies if this is rather a late contribution to this thread: I've
been away from my net connection for many weeks except periodic visits just
long enough to download but not to post replies!]

jan.frelin at pub.MIL.SE (jan frelin) wrote:

>Tracy <treith at hevanet.com> replied:
>
>I beg to differ. On a visit to Edinburgh, we crashed with a couple of the
>locals of the shire of Harpelstane, and they invited us for a dinner of
>Haggis (with  'nips and 'taters) and malt whisky. The whisky helped, I'm
>sure, but I found the dinner quite pleasant. I can recommend to anyone!

It's neeps and tatties... ;-) but oh, how I long for tater-tots! (I wanna
go HOOOOOMMMMMMEEEEE!)

If you like sausages, you will very probably like haggis. If you don't,
well, you've got no taste! ;-) Haggis is simply the Scottish varient on the
sausage theme. No more, no less.

Regarding canned haggis, or any haggis really: You need to read the label
carefully. A surprising number of canned haggis and other haggises (ie, the
ones that come with ingrediants tags) are made with beef, without any
sheep, but including other strange things that have no place being in a
haggis. So read the label, make sure it's made with real sheep! I had a
very embarrassing and disappointing experience with Baxter's canned haggis.
I had brought some home to the USA to show my friends how lovely haggis
was, but instead of getting Grant's haggis, the canned variety I normally
get when a butcher's haggis isn't practical, I bought Baxter's, on the
grounds they were supposed to be this outstanding highland canning company.
Big mistake. It tasted like mediocre beef hash, and nothing at all like
haggis. I tried to tell my friends this wasn't at all like *real* haggis,
but I worry the damage may have been done!

Haggis made by a good butcher is, of course, far superior to any canned
variety, but canned haggis is better than none -- if it's the right brand!
I imagine I shall be getting care packages of Grant's from my Scottish
friends when I return to the USA permanently...

Sharon Krossa, who loves haggis, even the canned sort, and is very
sensitive to slights to the haggisly honour

skrossa at svpal.org (permanent) -or- s.krossa at aberdeen.ac.uk (until June 1996)

From: s.krossa at aberdeen.ac.uk (Sharon Krossa)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Haggis
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 23:41:46 +0000
Organization: Phuture PhuDs

In article <4kube0$5f0 at info.abdn.ac.uk>,
Jim_Dunn at abdn.ac.uk (Jim Dunn) wrote:

>Sharon Krossa  (s.krossa at aberdeen.ac.uk)  wrote:
>
>> Regarding canned haggis, or any haggis really: You need to read the label
>> carefully. A surprising number of canned haggis and other haggises (ie, the
>> ones that come with ingrediants tags) are made with beef, without any
>> sheep, but including other strange things that have no place being in a
>> haggis. So read the label, make sure it's made with real sheep! I had a
>> very embarrassing and disappointing experience with Baxter's canned haggis.
>> I had brought some home to the USA to show my friends how lovely haggis
>> was, but instead of getting Grant's haggis, the canned variety I normally
>> get when a butcher's haggis isn't practical, I bought Baxter's, on the
>> grounds they were supposed to be this outstanding highland canning company.
>> Big mistake. It tasted like mediocre beef hash, and nothing at all like
>> haggis. I tried to tell my friends this wasn't at all like *real* haggis,
>> but I worry the damage may have been done!
>
>Didn't you mean mediocre mutton hash?  I imagine you did check the label,
>even for a firm with the reputation of  Baxters!  Anyway,  that's just me
>teasing.  

No no no :) I meant beef hash. There was no mutton, lamb, or sheep of any
kind in the Baxter's product (I hesitate to even call it haggis). If I
recall correctly it had diced potato in it too, or at least by taste it
seemed so. It was most odd. (And yes, the label did say haggis, NOT
stovies!) That experience was the one that taught me to always read the
label. (Proper shocked I was, too -- imagine! Baxter's! And after all their
lovely cosy commercials too...)

>The following is a serious question,  though,  which I hope
>Sharon  will answer.  Nowadays,  all the haggises I encounter seem to
>contain oatmeal as their main cereal ingredient.  However,  when I was a
>lad,  I believe the typical average haggis contained barley rather than
>oatmeal.  Is my memory faulty  (or at that age couldn't I tell the
> difference)  or is there a regional variation  -  after all,  here I am in
>the  North-East  of  Scotland  but I came from the  South-West?  Or could
>it be that haggises have evolved?

Come now, Jim, you'll know better than I! I've only ever lived in the
North-East of Scotland... erm, I mean to say, the only place in Scotland
I've ever lived is the North-East, and I thought oatmeal was the standard
thing. But then, I only arrived here the first time about 10 years ago! The
best haggis I ever had though (strange as it may seem) was a deep fried one
on the isle of Mull in a little chippy there about 6 years ago. I couldn't
tell you though if it had oats or barley. I don't know why it was so good,
but I've never forgotten it! That was my first fried haggis, and I've been
desperately trying to find one as good ever since... The New Dolphin (off
Union St. up by Holburn Jct) is nae bad, but can't really hold a candle to
that chippy on Mull!

I've dug out "Scottish Cookery" by Catherine Brown (its a cookbook, not a
history book -- I do have some!), though, and she says of haggis:
"15th-century recipes use the liver and the blood of the sheep, while later
recipes in the 17th century, referring to making a 'Haggas Pudding in the
Sheep's Paunch' use a wider variety of ingredients -- parsley, savoury,
thyme, onions, beef, suet, oatmeal, cloves, mace, pepper and salt, sewn up
and boiled; seved with a hole cut in the top and filled with butter melted
with two or three eggs. Another recipe uses a calve's paunch and the
entrails minced together with grated bread, yoks of eggs, cream, spice,
dried fruits and herbs, seved as a sweet with sugar and almonds: while yet
another recipe uses oatmeal steeped and boiled, mixed with spices, raisins,
onions and herbs." Elsewhere she says modern butchers keep secret their
permutations, but her basic recipe that includes sheep pluck, pinhead
oatmeal, suet, onion, salt, pepper, and mixed herbs is "a traditional
recipe which most butchers will tell you is basically what they work from,
though no two of them will produce the same haggis." She doesn't say
anything about barley, maybe its a South-West thing -- it does sound like
there is more room for variation that we thought! But I still say -- not
for beef! (Brown does say people get very picky about how they like their
haggis, so it seems there is reason for the butchers to shun uniformity!
Mark me down under the "no beef in the haggis" column)

Sharon Krossa, wondering why Jim isn't off Software Engineering something
and realizing with shock she's apparently not all alone in Aberdeen!

PS Brown's book lists a bunch of historical cookery sources in the back,
but doesn't tell which were the ones that told about haggis

skrossa at svpal.org (permanent) -or- s.krossa at aberdeen.ac.uk (until June 1996)

From: s.krossa at aberdeen.ac.uk (Sharon Krossa)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Haggis
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 09:29:49 +0000
Organization: Phuture PhuDs

Magorn <mgallehe at dcez.dcez.com> wrote:
>a certain group of wierdos with whom i ocassionally hang out are trying 
>to get a group of people together to Put on kilts and pipes and go into a 
>MC Donalds and Loudly and indignantly demand 15 orders of McHaggis to go....

Fast food haggis... not as weird as you think! In Scotland, at the fish and
chip shops, you can also get haggis, dipped in batter and deep fat fried
:-) McDonalds in Scotland, however, have yet to catch on...

Sharon Krossa, who doesn't like fish but still frequents the chippies!
skrossa at svpal.org (permanent) -or- s.krossa at aberdeen.ac.uk (until June 1996)

From: IVANOR at delphi.com
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Haggis
Date: 20 Apr 1996 01:37:23 GMT
Organization: Delphi Internet Services Corporation

Quoting Jim_Dunn from a message in rec.org.sca
   >that's just me teasing.  The following is a serious question,  though,
   >which I hope Sharon  will answer.  Nowadays,  all the haggises I
   >encounter seem to contain oatmeal as their main cereal ingredient.
   >However,  when I was a lad,  I believe the typical average haggis
   >contained barley rather than oatmeal.  Is my memory faulty  (or at
   >that age couldn't I tell the difference)  or is there a regional
   >variation  -  after all,  here I am in the  North-East  of  Scotland
   >but I came from the  South-West?  Or could it be that haggises have
   >evolved?

I've never heard of haggis made with anything but oats, nor does my Scots
cookbook mention any change (and it has a surprising amount of history...
which enabled me to cook a Scottish feast some years ago.)

Carolyn Boselli   ivanor at delphi.com   Host of CF35..SCAdians on Delphi
ivanor at localnet.com                                                   

From: "Aonghas MacLeoid (B.G. Morris)" <hylndr at ionline.net>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 21:37:02 -0400
Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks Re[2]: Atholbrose.

Please refer to my homepage (address to be found under my signature) and
click on the *highlighted* haggis, to find out more info on this most
famous of Scottish dishes.

Regards,
Aonghas

hylndr at ionline.net
http://www.ionline.net/~hylndr/

From: Mara Riley <corbie at radix.net>
Newsgroups:rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Haggis
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 17:41:34 -0400

I've had haggis; thought it was halfway decent.  It did need more
spices, though.  (I know, that's considered a crime or something! :D)

To me, haggis tasted rather like a liver sausage with a bit of a muttony
taste.  I like beef liver, myself; someone who doesn't like liver
probably won't like haggis either.

And yes, the organ meats are the most nutritious parts of the animal.  

I buy my sausage at a local deli which makes them fresh.  These are
GREAT sausage, and guess what they use for the casings?  Intestines,
which is what people have used for sausage casings for centuries.  Which
makes haggis different only in the method of cooking it, I guess!

Corbie

From: "Deb Hense" <debh at microware.com>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Haggis (was: tartan something...
Date: 30 Apr 1997 19:30:20 GMT
Organization: Microware Systems Corp

dam at galasphere347.dcs.gal.ac.uk wrote on Tuesday, April 29 at 9:37 am:
> But it is a fact. Haggis was what was raided from the bins, usually kitchen
> scraps and slaughter discards mixed with oatmeal. How else do you explain
> people eating sheeps stomach, lungs and heart?? No one in their right mind
> would eat such a concoction unless they were living in poverty and on the edge
> of starvation. Sometimes I wonder if maybe Burns was having a joke at
> everyone's expense, and they all fell for it! Was it the deep fried Mars bar
> of its day? A running joke that took on a life of its own? Oh well, maybe
> we'll have stovies elevated to haute cuisine one day..hmmm..
> 
> Glasgow.

Sorry, but I have made a small study in this area - especially with regards
to sausages.  The lungs and heart are commonly known in period as the
*lights* of an animal. They were often used in sausages, or thrown into
stews, or served up as a special dish. The stomachs and intestines were the
skins or holders of these special dishes or sausages. This is true in all
the countries/cultures that I have studied so far.  Heart is still a
specialty item in many countries, and you can still get it in many of the
ole US of A grocery stores.

It is only in the past 100 years that use of these animal parts for human
consumption has fallen off, and it is now ground into animal foods or
otherwise used. Much of our sausage casings are now made out of something
like cellulose (sp?) instead of intestines. Because much of period was much
closer to its agrarian roots than modern society (especially in the US) is,
they were much less wasteful of their food sources. Take a good look at
some of those period cookbooks. Many of them contain recipes calling for
the *lights* of such and such an animal. Look it up in the OE.  These
recipes were not written down for the people who lived in poverty (few of
whom could actually read) - but for the merchant (read middle) and
upper-classes.

As to whether Haggis tastes good or not. I've had great haggis and I've had
really bad haggis.  Methinks it doth depend entirely on the cook.

Kateryn de Develyn
Who once wrote a little cookbook which contained a lot of period sausage
recipes!

From: ALBAN at delphi.COM
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: haggis
Date: 4 May 1997 03:09:17 -0400

One EPotter asked
>What is the etymology of "haggis"?  Is there any record of when the 
>dish may have been introduced?  

From my copy of the CD-ROM edition of the Oxford English Dictionary:
>>haggis: [Derivation unknown. The analogy of most terms of cookery 
suggests a French source; but no corresp. F. word or form has been 
found. The conjecture that it represents F. hachis 'hash', with 
assimilation to hag, hack, to chop, has app. no basis of fact; F. hachis is 
not known so early, and the earlier forms of the Eng. word are more 
remote from it. Whether the word is connected with hag vb., evidence 
does not show.]
<<

and the first quote in the OED dates it to 1420.
Alban

Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 23:39:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Re- Welcome to Errick

There is a period haggis recipe, under that name, in Two Fifteenth Century
Cookery Books; I have never tried it.

Elizabeth/Betty

Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 08:34:42 -0500
From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter)
Subject: Re: SC - Re- Welcome to Errick

Hi, Katerine here.  Elizabeth of Dendermonde mentions the recipe for
haggis under that name in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.  There
are also recipes for haggis (under that name) in Diversa Servicia (in
Cury on Inglysch; recipe 15) and in Liber Cure Cocorum (recipe 125);
for haggis of almayne (under that name or a corruption) in TFCCB (first
MS, Leche Viaunds recipe 50, and second MS, recipe 84) and An Ordinance
of Pottage (recipe 104); for haggis of a sheep (TFCCB, first MS,
Leche Viaunds recipe 25); and for haggis under other names (fraunche
mele or a variant of that, and an entrayle) in TFCCB first MS LV 21 and
26, Liber Cure Cocorum 86, and Noble Boke of Cookery 243.

I've never made any of them.

Cheers,
- -- Katerine/Terry

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 00:34:40 EST
From: korrin.daardain at juno.com (Korrin S DaArdain)
Subject: SC - RE: haggis

Did someone say:

        Haggis

        1 Sheep's stomach bag plus the pluck (lights, liver and heart)
        1/4 pint beef stock
        1 lb Lean mutton
        6 oz Fine oatmeal
        8 oz Shredded suet
        2 lg Onions, chopped
        Salt and pepper
        about 1/4 pint beef stock.
        Soak the stomach bag in salted water overnight. Place the pluck
(lights, liver and heart) in a saucepan with the windpipe hanging over
the edge. Cover with water and boil for 1 1/2 hours. Impurities will pass
out through the windpipe and it is advisable to place a basin under it to
catch any drips. Drain well and cool. Remove the windpipe and any gristle
or skin. Mince the liver and heart with the mutton. (Add some of the
lights before mincing if you wish.) Toast the oatmeal gently until pale
golden brown and crisp. Combine with minced mixture, suet and onion.
Season well and add sufficient stock to moisten well. Pack into the
stomach bag, filling it just over half-full as the stuffing will swell
during cooking. Sew up the bag tightly or secure each end with string.
Put an upturned plate in the base of a saucepan of boiling water, stand
the haggis on this and bring back to the boil. Prick the haggis all over
with a large needle to avoid bursting and boil steadily for 3 to 4 hours.
Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Korrin S. DaArdain
Dodging trees in the
Kingdom of An Tir.
Korrin.DaArdain at Juno.com

From: Larry Johnson <ljohnsn1 at idt.net>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Hagus?
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 23:00:25 -0700
Organization: IDT

Michael Pruitt wrote:
> Does anybody have a recipe for hagus?  Thanks for any help.

Haggis recipes coming up, go to http://www/smart.net/~haggis.html and
you will have haggis coming out your ear.

One word of advice on using the oatmeal,  try to find the Irish Oatmeal,
it is more granular in consistancy,  don't use Quaker Rolled Oats as the
haggis will turn out to be hard as a brick. There are lots of good
recipes on this list.

From: Larry Johnson <ljohnsn1 at idt.net>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Hagus?
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:13:05 -0700
Organization: IDT

>     Take all the leftovers from the butchering of  a sheep , stuff into its
>     stomache , cook
>
> Shear the sheep close.  Wet it down, and roll it in oats.  Cut off the
> hooves, turn inside out, bake.

Good ones!! HAHAHAHAHahahaha 8>)  I'll have to pass those along at the Scottish
Games.

HAGGIS (from A Feast if Scotland, Janet Warren)

Stomach bag and pluck (heart, liver and lights [lungs] of a sheep)
2 onions, peeled
2 cups pinhead oatmeal  (Irish oatmeal)
1 2/3 cup suet
salt and pepper
trussing needle and fine string

Thoroughly wash the stomach bag in cold water, Turn it inside out and scald it,
then scrape the surface with a knife.  Soak it in cold salted water overnight.
Next day remove the bag from the water and leave it to one side while preparing
the filling.  Wash the pluck, put it into a pan with the windpipe hanging over the side of the bowl, to let out any impurities.  Cover the pluck with cold water, add 1 teaspoon of salt and bring to a boil.  Skim the surface, the simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  Meanwhile, parboil the onions, drain, reserving the liquid, and chop them roughly.  Also toast  the pinhead oatmeal until golden brown.  Drain the pluck when ready and cut away the windpipe and any excess gristle.  Mince half the liver with all the heart and lights, then stir in the shredded suet, the toasted oatmeal and the onions.  Season well with salt and pepper.  Moisten with as much of the onion or pluck water as necessary to make the mixture soft.  With the rough surface of the bag outside, fill it just over half full, the oatmeal will swell during cooking, and sew the ends together with the trussing needle and fine string. Prick the bag in places with the needle.  Place the haggis on an enamel plate and put it into a pan of boiling water.  Cover the pan and cook for about 3 hours, adding more boiling water when necessary to keep the haggis covered.  Serve with the traditional accompaniment of Tatties-an'-Neeps (mashed potatoes and mashed turnips mixed together) and a fine single malt scotch.

FYI-- a sheep's stomach is hard to find, so a very large boiling bag works well.
Using the lungs of a sheep is not allowed by the FDA.  You can substitute other
organ meats for the lungs.

SLAINTE
Yours aye
Labhruinn MacIain an Mor

Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 10:31:30 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - Haggis??

>Anybody got a period haggis recipe??
>
>bill

Oy!  You would make me boot up *that* program, wouldn't you!  I have
several period haggis recipes in "Take a Thousand Eggs or More"; some call
for the stomach of a sheep, others for that of a porpoise.  ([th] has been
substituted for 'thorn)

Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez, c. 1430
xxv.  Hagws of a schepe.  Take [th]e Roppis with [th]e talour, & parboyle
hem; [th]an hakke hem smal; grynd pepir, & Safroun, & brede, & [3]olkys of
Eyroun, & Raw kreme or swete Mylke:  do al to-gederys, & do in [th]e grete
wombe of the Schepe, [th]at is, the mawe; & [th]an se[th]e hym an serue
forth ynne.

Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez
xl.  Puddyng of purpaysse.  Take [th]e Blode of hym, & [th]e grece of hym
self, & Ote-mele, & Salt, & Pepir, & Gyngere, & melle [th]ese to-gederys
wel, & [th]an putte [th]is in [th]e Gutte of [th]e purpays, & [th]an lat it
se[th]e esyli, & not hard, a good whylys; & [th]an take hym vppe, & broyle
hym a lytil, & [th]an serue f[orth].

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
renfrow at skylands.net
Author & Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More, A Collection of 15th
Century Recipes" and "A Sip Through Time, A Collection of Old Brewing
Recipes"

Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 11:10:06 -0500
From: mfgunter at fnc.fujitsu.com (Michael F. Gunter)
Subject: Re: SC - Haggis??

Thanks Sincgiefu,

These are wonderful recipes. But......

> Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez, c. 1430
> xxv.  Hagws of a schepe.  Take [th]e Roppis with [th]e talour, & parboyle
> hem; [th]an hakke hem smal; grynd pepir, & Safroun, & brede, & [3]olkys of
> Eyroun, & Raw kreme or swete Mylke:  do al to-gederys, & do in [th]e grete
> wombe of the Schepe, [th]at is, the mawe; & [th]an se[th]e hym an serue
> forth ynne.

I take it "Roppis" to be the intestines and tripe, but what is talour? At
first thought it would be "tallow" but I feel it would more likely indicate
organ meats like the liver, kidneys, etc...

Then ground and mixed with pepper, saffron, breadcrumbs, egg yolks, and
cream or milk. Boiled in the stomach.

To tell you the truth, it sounds kinda tasty.

> Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez
> xl.  Puddyng of purpaysse.  Take [th]e Blode of hym, & [th]e grece of hym
> self, & Ote-mele, & Salt, & Pepir, & Gyngere, & melle [th]ese to-gederys
> wel, & [th]an putte [th]is in [th]e Gutte of [th]e purpays, & [th]an lat it
> se[th]e esyli, & not hard, a good whylys; & [th]an take hym vppe, & broyle
> hym a lytil, & [th]an serue f[orth].

Is this the mammal? Although it seems good I won't knowingly eat mammilian
dolphin or porpose. Sorry Ras, I'm too much of a liberal to eat animals
I consider intelligent.

> Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu

Gunthar

Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 12:42:23 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - Haggis??

>Thanks Sincgiefu,
>
>These are wonderful recipes. But......

Sorry , here you go! (I thought everyone here read M.E. by now - y'all do
know there's going to be a quiz next Friday, don't you? ;-) )

>> Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez, c. 1430
>> xxv.  Hagws of a schepe.  Take [th]e Roppis with [th]e talour, & parboyle
>> hem; [th]an hakke hem smal; grynd pepir, & Safroun, & brede, & [3]olkys of
>> Eyroun, & Raw kreme or swete Mylke:  do al to-gederys, & do in [th]e grete
>> wombe of the Schepe, [th]at is, the mawe; & [th]an se[th]e hym an serue
>> forth ynne.

25.  Haggis of a sheep.  Take the Guts with the tallow, & parboil them;
then hack them small; grind pepper, & Saffron, & bread, & yolks of Eggs, &
Raw cream or sweet Milk:  put all together, & put in the great stomach of
the Sheep, that is, the stomach; & then seethe him and serve forth in.

>I take it "Roppis" to be the intestines and tripe, but what is talour? At
>first thought it would be "tallow" but I feel it would more likely indicate
>organ meats like the liver, kidneys, etc...
>
>Then ground and mixed with pepper, saffron, breadcrumbs, egg yolks, and
>cream or milk. Boiled in the stomach.
>
>To tell you the truth, it sounds kinda tasty.
>
>> Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez
>> xl.  Puddyng of purpaysse.  Take [th]e Blode of hym, & [th]e grece of hym
>> self, & Ote-mele, & Salt, & Pepir, & Gyngere, & melle [th]ese to-gederys
>> wel, & [th]an putte [th]is in [th]e Gutte of [th]e purpays, & [th]an lat it
>> se[th]e esyli, & not hard, a good whylys; & [th]an take hym vppe, & broyle
>> hym a lytil, & [th]an serue f[orth].

40.  Pudding of porpoise.   Take the Blood of him, & the grease of him
self, & Oatmeal, & Salt, & Pepper, & Ginger, & mix these together well, &
then put this in the Gut of the porpoise, & then let it seethe gently, &
not hard, a good while; & then take him up, & broil him a little, & then
serve f[orth].

>Is this the mammal? Although it seems good I won't knowlingly eat mammilian
>dolphin or porpous. Sorry Ras, I'm too much of a liberal to eat animals
>I consider intelligent.

Yes, it's the mammal.

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
renfrow at skylands.net
Author & Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More, A Collection of 15th
Century Recipes" and "A Sip Through Time, A Collection of Old Brewing
Recipes"

Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 12:12:06 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Haggis??

At 9:42 PM -0500 5/27/98, William Seibert wrote:
>Anybody got a period haggis recipe??

Yes, but it's English.

Hagws of a schepe (Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books p. 39)

Take the Roppis [i.e. guts] with the talour [tallow=fat], & parboyle hem;
than hakke hem smal; grynd pepir, & Safroun, & brede, & yolkys of Eyroun, &
Raw kreme or swete Mylke: do al to-gederys, & do in the grete wombe of the
Schepe, that is, the maw [stomach]; & than sethe hym and serue forth ynne.
[thorns replaced by th's]

I haven't tried it, but it seems straightforward enough, if you can get the
ingredients.  I would find a modern haggis recipe to tell you how long to
boil it and such.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook

Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 02:45:19 EDT
From: korrin.daardain at juno.com (Korrin S DaArdain)
Subject: SC - Haggis: Traditional, Mock Lamb, & Mock Beef.

Greetings All,
        I have three recipes for Haggis in my collection.
        Enjoy.

Korrin S. DaArdain
Kingdom of An Tir.
Korrin.DaArdain at Juno.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        Haggis
 _      From A Feast of Scotland, by Janet Warren. Posted by Dorothy
Flatman, Clackamas, Oregon, USA (Fidonet 1:105/86)
        1 Stomach bag and pluck (heart liver and lungs of a sheep (You
can substitute a selection of organ meats))
        2 Onions; peeled
        2 c  Pinhead oatmeal; (Irish oatmeal)
        1 2/3 c  Suet
        Salt & pepper
        1 trussing needle and fine string
        Thoroughly wash the stomach bag in cold water.  Turn it inside
out and scald it, then scrape the surface with a knife. Soak it in cold
salted water overnight. Next day remove the bag from the water and leave
it on one side while preparing the filling. Wash the pluck. Put it into a
pan, with the windpipe hanging over the side into a bowl, to let out any
impurities. Cover the pluck with cold water, add 1 teaspoon of salt and
bring the water to a boil. Skim the surface, then simmer for 1 1/2 to 2
hours. Meanwhile parboil the onions, drain, reserving the liquid, and
chop them roughly. Also toast the pinhead oatmeal until golden brown.
Drain the pluck when ready and cut away the windpipe and any excess
gristle. Mince half the liver with all the heart and lights, then stir in
the shredded suet, the toasted oatmeal and the onions. Season well with
salt and pepper. Moisten with as much of the onion or pluck water as
necessary to make the mixture soft. With the rough surface of the bag
outside fill it just over half full, the oatmeal will swell during
cooking, and sew the ends together with the trussing needle and fine
string. Prick the bag in places with the needle. Place the haggis on and
enamel plate and put it into a pan of boiling water. Cover the pan and
cook for about 3 hours, adding more boiling water when necessary to keep
the haggis covered. Serve with the traditional accompaniment of
Tatties-an'Neeps. (Mashed potatoes and mashed turnips.)

        This is typically served on Burns' Night, January 25, when
Scotland celebrates the birth of their greatest poet, Robert Burns, who
was born in Ayrshire on that date in 1759. During the celebration, Burns
poems are read, and the haggis is addressed by a member of the party,
ceremonially, in the for of verses from Burns' poem, "Address to a
Haggis" A typical meal for Burn's night would include, Cock-a-Leekie,
Haggis with Tattie-an'-neeps, Roastit Beef, Tipsy Laird, and Dunlop
Cheese.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        Haggis, Mock Lamb
        From Country Living, March, 1991. Posted by Dorothy Flatman,
Clackamas, Oregon, USA (Fidonet 1:105/86)
        1 lb Boneless lamb shoulder or Breast, cut into pieces, or Use
ground lamb
        1/2 lb Lamb liver; cut into pieces
        1/2 c  Water
        1 sm Onion; coarsely chopped
        1 lg Egg
        3/4 ts Salt
        3/4 ts Pepper, black
        1/2 ts Sugar
        1/4 ts Ginger, ground
        1/8 ts Cloves, ground
        1/8 ts Nutmeg, ground
        1 c  Oats, rolled, old fashioned
        Heat oven to 350-F. Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch loaf pan. In
food processor with chopping blade, process together half of the lamb,
the liver, water, onion, egg, salt, pepper, sugar, ginger, cloves, and
nutmeg until well combined. Add the remaining half of the lamb and the
oats; process until well combined. Spoon lamb mixture into the greased
pan; pat surface to level. Bake 45 to 55 minutes or until center feels
firm when gently pressed. Cool 5 minutes in pan; un-mold onto platter;
slice and serve.        Notes: This skinless haggis is planned for
American tastes, yet contains many of the ingredients found in the real
thing. You can un-mold the loaf and serve it in place of the purchased
haggis recipes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        Haggis, Mock Beef
 _      From Lillian Beckwith's Hebridean Cookbook by Lillian Beckwith.
Posted by Dorothy Flatman, Clackamas, Oregon, USA (Fidonet 1:105/86)
        1/2 lb Liver
        1/2 lb Beef, minced
        2 md Onions
        6 oz Oatmeal, medium
        6 oz Suet; shredded
        1 ts Salt
        1 pn Pepper
        1 pn Nutmeg; grated
        1/3 c  Water in which liver had been boiled
        1 pn Cayenne pepper

        "Haggis, "The great Chieftain of the pudding' race", as Robert
Burns, described it, is indeed a toothsome morsel and it is a great pity
that many English people look upon it as more a Scottish joke than a good
Scottish dish. However since Haggis is made from the stomach, lungs and
other internals of a sheep it is a rather gruesome sight during certain
stages of its cooking, as anyone who has witnessed the process will
agree. The lung must be first be heating in a pan of hot water with the
trachea hanging over the side to allow any blood and froth to escape and
the stomach bag must be cleaned and scraped very thoroughly before it is
used. I must say from experience that it takes needs a fairly robust
stomach to first prepare and then eat it. If you can buy prepared haggis
I do strongly recommend you to try it. All you need to do is slice it and
fry it in a lightly greased frying pan. If you cannot buy ready-made
haggis, then the following is tasty substitute.."

        Boil the liver for five minutes. Drain and put aside to cool.
Toast the oatmeal in a dry frying pan or in the oven until it begins to
turn a pale brown. Peel and mince the onions and the liver. Mix all the
ingredients with the seasoning and stir in some of the water in which the
liver has been boiled. The mixture should be thoroughly moist but not
wet. Have ready a greased basin large enough to give the mixture room to
swell. Cover with grease proof paper and a cloth and boil or steam for
three hours.    The traditional way to serve haggis is with mashed
potatoes and turnips - "tatties and neeps", as they are called in
Scotland - and to give the meal a truly Scottish flavor you should serve
a glass of whiskey along with it.

        I like to let the mock haggis go cold and then slice it and heat
it through in a frying pan (without fat) until golden brown on both
sides. This way it is very good with poached eggs and even with chips.
        Note: if your mince looks to be on the fatty side, then cut down
the quantity of suet to 4 oz (100grams).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 08:47:58 -0700
From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net>
Subject: Haggis and lamb tummies was Re: SC - More lamb

Hi from Anne-Marie, resident ex-farmgirl and ruminent breeder :)
Phlip asks:
> > . I would appreciate recipes for blood sausage and black pudding,
> > possibly a haggis, if someone can specify WHICH stomach, and any other
> > parts not mentioned.

any "ethnic" scottish cookbook will have a recipe for such things, as well
as Robert May, etc if you want a period source.

Now that you mention it, I dont think any of the sources I've looked at
ever actually mention which part of the digestive tract, other than to say
"stomach" (or some other equally unhelpful word). Now, as for which
stomach, actually, technically, I'm betting they want the rumen, the big
empty bit, which actually, technically isnt part of the stomach at all, but
is a pouch off the esophagus. You got your rumen, your omassum and your
reticulum, see, and then you got your abomasum, which actually the stomach
bit. Dont mind me...I did a 4H demonstration on this when I was 12 :).
Each bit does something different, see, and the rumen is the biggest and
hollowest, so that's why I'm thinking its the "sheeps maw"  or "paunch"
mentioned in the sources.

As for other bits, they mention the liver and heart (self explanitory), the
lights (lungs), and one of my books specifies the tongue as well.

- --Anne-Marie d'Ailleurs
mka Anne-Marie Rousseau
Madrone/An Tir
Seattle/WA

Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 08:04:58 -0700
From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net>
Subject: Re: Haggis and lamb lungs was Re: SC - More lamb

>       I, too have been considering making a Haggis, and have done some
> looking around on the net for more information.  I learned something that
> actually has be a bit relvieved.
>
>       Acording to the Haggis Web page (funny that there is such a thing,
> huh?)  the FDA had decreed that sheep lung is not fit for human consumption.
> This is why haggis is not imported.  I would assume that would mean you also
> could not get the lung from a butcher, or from the processing house you
> might.
>
>       Alys D.

Hi from AM
I'm sure that its not that the FDA "doesnt consider the lung fit for human
consumption", but that they're afraid of the really rather nastie cooties
one can get specifically from sheeps lungs. (can you say liver flukes?).
These guys encyst in the lung and a cursory visual exam may or may not get
them. You CAN find lungs in the country, but it takes some digging. I think
there's a butcher here in Seattle who specializes in...ahem....special
bits? I could of sworn I saw the list on the wall include "lights" next to
the Rocky Mountains Oysters, sweet breads, etc. Another possibility is to
buy the sheep yourself, ie totally skip the FDA. I'd be very careful WHO I
bought it from though...if a single sheep coughed when I was there, and the
pasture wasnt bone dry I doubt I'd eat the lungs (the fluke has a water
born stage...the sheep get it from eating grasses grown in watery pasture.
Migrates to the lung. Normally it encysts there for a bit, then hatches,
and crawls up the esophagus (hence the cough), gets swallowed and out in
the feces, back to the water. Rather tidy! probably more info than you
wanted, sorry!)

Anyway, the point is, the FDA isn’t making some sort of value judgement, the
rule is there for a very good reason. You can probably get around it if you
want to, but be very careful!

- --Anne-Marie

Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 09:04:42 -0400
From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: Haggis and lamb tummies was Re: SC - More lamb

Weiszbrod, Barbara A wrote:
>         I, too have been considering making a Haggis, and have done some
> looking around on the net for more information.  I learned something that
> actually has be a bit relvieved.
>
>         Acording to the Haggis Web page (funny that there is such a thing,
> huh?)  the FDA had decreed that sheep lung is not fit for human consumption.
> This is why haggis is not imported.  I would assume that would mean you also
> could not get the lung from a butcher, or from the processing house you
> might.
>
>         The reason I find this comforting is that I can handle cooking the
> hart and the liver, but the idea  of lungs in a pot with the trachia hanging
> out the side is too much for this city girl.  Yucky.
>
>         Alys D.

You can make quite a good "faux" haggis using lamb hearts and liver, which
will cut down on the livery flavor many Americans don't approve of anyway,
and substituting spleens in equal weight for the lungs. If you have a good
"ethnic" butcher, one whose name ends in a vowel ;  ), etc., he should either
have pork spleen or be able to order some for you. (Ask about milts or melt if
he looks blank when you ask for spleen, or there may be another local term.)
Spleen is vaguely similar to lungs in flavor, color, and, when ground up as
for haggis, texture (lungs are ordinarily relatively spongy, which can be
solved by parboiling them and cooling under a weighted plate or board, but for
haggis this is not a problem). Haggises made without lights tend to be paler
in color and more bland, more like liverwurst, but spleens will help give the
distinctive dark color and rich flavor a haggis should have, even if they're
not authentic sheep's lungs. Spleen, BTW, is a flat strip of dark red organ
meat, with a thin line of fat running along the center line.

By the way, I highly recommend using haggis recipes that _do_ call for suet
over ones that don't, and the other essential is that while the more exotic
spices seem to have been rare in the Scottish Highlands until the 19th century
or so, you can accomplish a lot for the flavor with judiciously applied salt
and pepper. I recommend seasoning your ground filling and tasting it (since
your meats will have already been cooked), bearing in mind that this is
supposed to be a sausage.

Oh, and never, ever, use rolled oats. The only thing they're good for is
oatmeal cookies, and that's debatable when you place them side by side with
the same cookie made with real oatmeal.

Adamantius
Østgardr, East

Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 14:38:26 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: SC - The Problems with Lungs

tyrca at yahoo.com writes:
<<  Perhaps there is another way to cook them, >>

My experience with cooking lungs is that the trachea should be draped over the
pot rim as suggested. I have removed it and found that the lungs puff up with
the hot air and steam from cooking. They then float around on the surface like
some bizaare sea creature. If the lungs are slit, the slit seems to adhere to
the underlying lissue and you get an irregular blob floating about. Either
way, floating causes uneven cooking, which is a bad thing. I have also cut
them in pieces which causes a decernable flavor difference in the finished
product.

In smaller animals the problem of floating is not quite so bad. In fact, the
garbage that I served with the Roasted Rabbit at Will's contained not only
the heart, livers  spleen and kidneys of the rabbit but also the lungs. They
seemed to cook well and the air sort of disappereared aftem repeated
submersions and stirrings.

Ras

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 10:13:18 -0500
From: James Gilly / Alasdair mac Iain <alasdair.maciain at snet.net>
Subject: RE: Haggis and lamb tummies was Re: SC - More lamb

At 09:39 19-10-98 -0500, Alys wrote, regarding haggis:
>hmmmm, do you think it would dry out too much if I put it in a chaffing
>dish?  Or is room temp warm enough?  And if it is room temp, is there a
>worry about health problems?  It gets cooked so long I would think that any
>beasties in it would be dead.

>From *Scottish Cookery*:

Other ways of serving:
     'Haggis meat, by those who cannot admire the natural shape,' says Meg
Dods, 'may be poured out of the bag, and *served in a deep dish*.  No dish
heats up better.'  It is also a very practical way of serving haggis to
large numbers provided it is well covered to prevent drying out.  Knobs of
butter dotted over the top surface are a good idea.

[*Scottish Cookery*, Catherine Brown, p 149.  Copyright 1989 by Catherine
Brown.]

Alasdair mac Iain

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 10:14:55 -0500
From: James Gilly / Alasdair mac Iain <alasdair.maciain at snet.net>
Subject: RE: Haggis and lamb tummies was Re: SC - More lamb

At 09:11 19-10-98 -0500, Alys wrote:
>The point (as far as I can tell) of hanging the tracea out of the pot is to
>let gases escape from the lungs and in doing so prevent it from exploding.
>That would really be gross!  The receipes that I have found tell you to
>discard it after the cooking is complete..

>From *Scottish Cookery*:

    My first haggis-making exploits were as a student when the whole
process took the best part of a day to complete.  The raw Sheep's Pluck*,
while not a pretty sight, didn't worry me at all but the windpipe hanging
over the side of the pot which the whole pluck was cooking in, quietly
disgorging the blood and other impurities from the lungs into a jar which
we had placed on the cooker, did not appeal.

    * A Sheep's Pluck is the part of the animal which has been 'plucked'
out of the belly and includes the liver, heart and lungs which are all
joined together with the windpipe at one end.

[*Scottish Cookery*, Catherine Brown, pp 147-148.  Copyright 1989 by
Catherine Brown.]

Instructions for actually making the haggis (the day after the pluch has
been cooked) include "cut off the windpipe, trim away all skin and black
parts."

Alasdair mac Iain

Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 10:00:05 -0500
From: James Gilly / Alasdair mac Iain <alasdair.maciain at snet.net>
Subject: SC - Haggis

HAGGIS

     Walk into any butcher's shop in Scotland and ask how many pounds of
haggis they make in a week - you will be astonished.  And this, for every
week of the year; not just at the national festivals of St Andrew's Day and
Burns' night when demand often outstrips supply and butchers are frequently
sold out by the end of the morning.  If the desire for haggis is strong at
home, it becomes an obsession for exiled Scots who have vast quantities
air-freighted to all parts of the globe for these two nights of the year.

     Ny first haggis-making exploits were as a student when the whole
process took the best part of a day to complete.  The raw Sheep's Pluck*,
while not a pretty sight, didn't worry me at all but the windpipe hanging
over the side of the pot which the whole pluck was cooking in, quietly
disgorging the blood and other impurities from the lungs into a jar which
we had placed on the cooker, did not appeal.  It was about ten years before
I had another go, when I was working in a hotel which bought whole sheep
and as the plucks started filling up the precious deep freeze space,
prompted by necessity, I got out my old Haggis recipe in *The Glasgow
Cookery Book* (John Smith, Glasgow, Revised Edition, 1962).

     It is a traditional recipe which most butchers will tell you is
basically what they work from, though no two of them will produce the same
haggis.  Variations are secret and have been developed over many years
testing the Scottish palate for preferences.  Haggis lovers have very
definite ideas about the best qualities of haggis and a competition is held
each year to find the best butcher's haggis.

* A Sheep's Pluck is the part of the animal which has been 'plucked' out of
the belly and includes the liver, heart and lungs which are all joined
together with the windpipe at one end.

     Qualities of a good Haggis
     The flavour is a matter of taste, with some liking it spicy and 'hot'
with plenty of pepper, while others prefer a milder flavour with more herbs
than spices.  Relative proportions of meat to oatmeal, suet and onions also
depend on individual preferences as does the type of offal used.  Some
butchers will use ox liver because their customers prefer the flavour,
while others stick to the traditional sheep's - there are all kinds of
ermutations which make haggis eating something of an adventure.
     More a question of quality, the meat should have no tough gristly bits
sometimes found in a badly-made haggis and the texture should be moist and
firm, rather than dry and crumbly.

Traditional method
     1 sheep's bag and pluck
     4 oz/125 g suet, finely chopped (1 c)
     4 medium onions, finely chopped
     1/2 lb/250 g pinhead oatmeal (2 c)
     2-4 tablespoons salt
     1 level teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
     1 level teaspoon dries mixed herbs (2 for fresh)

Preparing the pluck and bag
     Wash the bag in cold water, scrape and clean well.  Leave overnight in
cold water.  Wash the pluck and put it ina pan of boiling water.  Let the
windpipe lie over the side of the pot and have a small jar underneath to
catch the drips.  Simmer gently till all are tender - this depends on the
age of the animal but is usually between one and two hours.  Place the
cooked pluck in a large basin, cover with the liquid which it was boiled in
and leave overnight.

Making the Haggis
(The next day)
     Toast the oatmeal in the oven till thoroughly dried-out but not
browned.  Cut off the windpipe, trim away all skin and black parts.  Chop
or mince the heart and lungs, grate the liver.  Add the oatmeal, salt,
pepper, herbs and about 1 pt/1/2 L (2 1/2 c) of the liquid the pluck was
boiled in.  Mix well, fill the bag rather more than half full of the
ixture.  Press out the air, sew up and prick with a long needle.  Place in
boiling water, simmer for 3 hours, pricking again when it swells.  The bag
may be cut into several pieces to make smaller haggis in which case cook
for only 1 1/2-2 hours.

     Serve hot with 'tatties' - Creamed Potatoes flavoured with nutmeg (see
p. 181); 'neeps' - Mashed Turnip flavoured with allspice (see p. 194) and a
good blended whisky.

Other ways of serving
     'Haggis meat, by those who cannot admire the natural shape,' says Meg
Dods, 'may be poured out of the bag, and *served in a deep dish*.  No dish
heats up better.'  It is also a very practical way of serving haggis to
large numbers provided it is well covered to prevent drying out.  Knobs of
butter dotted over the top surface are a good idea.  Slices of haggis can
be grilled, fried or wrapped in foil and baked in the oven with a bit of
butter on top.  The slices can be served as part of a Mixed Grill or for
breakfast with bacon and egg.  It is very good fried and served simply with
fried onions or with an onion sauce lightly flavoured with whisky.  I have
had a slice of fried haggis served in a roll and described as a
'Haggisburger'.  It was served with a whisky-flavoured chutney and was an
excellent snack.  It can also be used with mince in a Shepherd's Pie.
     Provided you are careful about the dominating flavour it can be used
as a stuffing.  It should not be used with delicately-flavoured meat like
chicken unless it is a very mild haggis.  Other ingredients can be added to
the haggis such as nuts or cooked rice.  Mixing in a little tomato sauce
(see p. 257) can work well.

     An Edinburgh butcher, well-known for his quality haggis, Charles
MacSween has recently made a vegetarian haggis with an excellent flavour
which is proving popular.  It has a variety of vegetables, spices, oatmeal
and brown rice.

     Perhaps the most unusual idea is that of serving cold haggis.  Some
years ago I met a chef whose local butcher made such a good haggis that he
served a slice of it cold with hot toast as a starter course.  It seemed
that he used pork fat and meat rather than suet along with a delicate
combination of herbs and spices with excellent results.

     Variations in other recipes include adding the juice of a lemon or a
little 'good vinegar'.  Even flavouring with cayenne pepper.  Quantities of
oatmeal and suet vary a lot with up to 2 lb/1 kg oatmeal and 1 lb/500 g
suet to a singlepluck.  Some are boiled for up to 6 hours.  Meg Dods says
that, 'A finer haggis may be made by parboiling and skinning sheep's
tongues and kidneys, and substituting these minced, for most ot the lights,
and soaked bread or crisped crumbs for the toasted meal.'  For those who
can't face a whole pluck she also says that the parboiled minced meat from
a sheep's head can be used for haggis.

Origins of Haggis Pudding
     Like pies, puddings have always been made with a collection of
miscellaneous ingredients; the one under a pie crust, the other boiled in
the stomach bag of an animal.  The term 'pudding' came from the habit in
15th and 16th centuries of referring to the entrails of animals and men as
'puddings'.

     Pudding Lane in London is thought to have derived its name, not from
an association with edible puddings, but because 'the butchers of Eastcheap
have their scalding-houses for hogs there, and their puddings, with other
filth of beasts, are voided down that way to their Dung-boats on the
Thames.'

     From the 15th century to about the 18th century, recipes for early
puddings are closely connected with something called a 'Haggis' or 'Haggas'
pudding.  The general principle involved the use of the stomach bag with a
filling of the cooked entrails plus some other ingredients.  15th-century
recipes use the liver and the blood of the sheep, while later recipes in
the 17th century. referring to making a 'Haggas Pudding in the Sheep's
Paunch' use a wider variety of ingredients - parsley, savoury, thyme,
onions, beef, suet, oatmeal, cloves, mace, pepper and salt, sewn up and
boiled; served with a hole cut in the top and filled with butter melted
with two or three eggs.  Another recipe uses a calve's paunch* and the
entrails minced together with grated bread, yolks of eggs, cream, spices,
dried fruits and herbs, served as a sweet with sugar and almonds; while yet
another recipe uses oatmeal steeped and boiled, mixed with spices, raisins,
onions and herbs.

     Although the derivation is obscure, some etymologists claim that the
term may have been transferred from the now obsolete name for a magpie
which was 'Haggiss' or 'Haggess'.  A medieval comparison may have been
drawn between the magpie's habit of collecting and forming an accumulation
of varied articles and the same general principle applied instead to
ingredients for the pudding.  This analogy is carried even further, with
the unproven theory that another early word for the magpie may be
responsible for the word 'pie' since at one time the magpie was known as a
'maggot-pie' or a 'Margaret-pie' or even simply as a 'pie'.

     Whether the habits of the magpie had anything to do with what we know
to-day as puddings and pies, the Haggis pudding has a British rather than a
Scottish pedigree with the English making Haggis well into the 18th
century.  The Scots' deeply rooted instincts, bred by centuries of
surviving at poverty levels, to use up all the odds and ends of an animal
seems to me the best reason why we have continued to make it.  The fact
that we actually still like to eat it is proof enough of its virtue.

* Baxters of Fochabers made one of the largest Haggis, weighing 170 lb, by
stuffing the mixture into the interior of two cows' stomachs which had been
sewn together

[*Scottish Cookery*, by Catherine Brown, pp 147-150.  Copyright 1989
Catherine Brown.  First published 1985; new edition 1989; reprinted 1990.
Richard Drew Publishing Ltd, Glasgow.]

**********   **********   **********

Alasdair mac Iain

Laird Alasdair mac Iain of Elderslie
Dun an Leomhain Bhig
Canton of Dragon's Aerie [southeastern CT]
Barony Beyond the Mountain  [northern & southeastern CT]
East Kingdom

Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 13:44:35 EST
From: Mordonna22 at aol.com
Subject: SC - Faux Haggis

kathleen.hogan at juno.com writes:
> I have a couple of haggis recipes.  I
>  even had an Irish ex-boyfriend who made it for me once.  I love the
>  stuff, but can't get the ingredients around here.

My Scots Grandmother (Naomi Morganna LeFay Hardy DuBose) taught me to make a
beef version of Haggis:
1/4 LB beef suet
1 beef liver
1 beef heart
1 beef tripe
Beef kidneys, lungs, pancreas, spleen, etc. as available.
4 small onions
2 dried chilies
2 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. ground pepper
1 to 2 cups water

Place in a heavy stew pot and bring to a boil at high heat, then reduce to
medium low heat and simmer for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until very tender.
Chop fine and add 1 cup fine oatmeal or barley and 1 quart of water.  Return
to high heat and bring back to a boil, cover and remove from heat and allow
to stand for 20 minutes without peeking.  As Ras said, "DO NOT LIFT THE LID"

Serve immediately or chill and slice and serve with toast and mustard.

Mordonna (Because the Haralds won't allow my true name) DuBois
Barony of Atenveldt
Kingdom of Atenveldt

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 00:58:03 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Pennsic Potluck

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> In one of the food classes I was in at Pennsic, taught by Honour Horne-Jaruk
> (Alizaunde, Demoiselle de Bregeuf) she said that haggis within out period
> was the food of the nobility and was composed of dried fruit in the stomach
> rather than the lights. She said that later on it became the food of the
> lower classes and that was when the fruit was replaced by the organ meats
> and lungs and such.

Haggis was _a_ food of the nobility, if we can judge from the extant
recipes, which suggest that foods called haggis were eaten in medieval
England, specifically 14th-15th century. They do seem to bear little
resemblance to th' Graet Chieftain of th' Puddin' Race. It seems likely
that a haggis, in general terms, was a pudding boiled in a stomach bag.
I recall an early recipe for a haggis (presumably a faux haggis or some
kinda warner) made from poached eggs. Another close approximation would
be a fronchemoyle, again, a variant on the white pudding theme, boiled
in a stomach sack.

There are several English haggis recipes that are nearly
indistinguishable from a white pudding recipe, generally involving
breadcrumbs instead of oats (although even now some white puds do call
for oats), with suet, cream, spices, and in some cases, I believe, fruit
such as dried Raisins of Corance.

I don't know that I accept the idea, though, that haggis became a food
of the lower classes; I guess that depends on what one considers lower
classes. In Scotland, the farmers who butchered mutton and ate the
innards that wouldn't keep well, and the nobles who hunted for various
types of deer and made haggis from their innards, aren't what I'd call
especially lower classes.

What I think has happened is either that the dish evolved over time
without especially crossing borders of socio-economic class (at least
none it hadn't crossed long since), or that we have early documentation
of a regional variant distinct from another regional variant, for which
we have later documentation. The two dishes may well have co-existed, in
fact almost certainly did, I think.

Adamantius

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 09:04:55 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - Pennsic Potluck

Stefan wrote:
>While I have several haggis recipes in my haggis-msg file, they can best
>be described as traditional and I believe are undated.
>
>Does anyone have evidence to confirm or deny her comments?

No, but here is a recipe from the Danish cookbook:

How to stuff a sheep´s stomach

Take lean veal and pork fat and chop it small together. Add some small
raisins and four beaten eggs. Salt to taste and season with some herbs and
take care, when you add the eggs, that the mixture is neither too thick nor
too thin. Stuff the sheep´s stomach with this, so that each stomach is only
half filled, and close it. Place it in boiling water and cook it as other
sausages, until it is well cooked and hard. Take it out of the water and cut
it in nice slices. Make a nice brown sauce of gingerbread and wine and add
some herbs, so it has a lively taste. Add the slices to the sauce, salt it,
taste for seasonings, then serve it forth.

[The cookbook mentioned is:
The recipe comes from "Koge Bog: Indeholdendis et hundrede fornødene stycker
Som ere om Brygning, Bagning, Kogen, Brendewijn oc Miød at berede, aare
nyttelig udi husholding, etc., Som tilforn icke paa vort Danske Sprog udi
Tryck er udgangen", Copenhagen, 1616. As the title says, this is the oldest
printed Danish cookbook, and it has one hundred recipes. - Stefan.]

Nanna

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 11:57:06 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - Pennsic Potluck

<snip>

>In one of the food classes I was in at Pennsic, taught by Honour Horne-Jaruk
>(Alizaunde, Demoiselle de Bregeuf) she said that haggis within out period
>was the food of the nobility and was composed of dried fruit in the stomach
>rather than the lights. She said that later on it became the food of the
>lower classes and that was when the fruit was replaced by the organ meats
>and lungs and such.
>
>While I have several haggis recipes in my haggis-msg file, they can best
>be described as traditional and I believe are undated.
>
>Does anyone have evidence to confirm or deny her comments?
<snip>

Here are the haggis & haggis-like recipes from Harleian 279, c. 1430:

Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez
xxj.  An Entrayle.  Take a chepis wombe; take Polettys y-rostyd, & hew hem;
[th]en take Porke, chese, & Spicery, & do it on a morter, & grynd alle
y-fere; [th]en take it vppe with Eyroun y-swonge, & do in [th]e wombe, &
Salt, & se[th]e hem tyl he be y-nowe, & serue forth.

Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez
xxv.  Hagws of a schepe.  Take [th]e Roppis with [th]e talour, & parboyle
hem; [th]an hakke hem smal; grynd pepir, & Safroun, & brede, & [3]olkys of
Eyroun, & Raw kreme or swete Mylke:  do al to-gederys, & do in [th]e grete
wombe of the Schepe, [th]at is, the mawe; & [th]an se[th]e hym an serue
forth ynne.

Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez
xxvj.  Frawnchemyle.  Nym Eyroun with [th]e whyte, & gratid Brede, & chepis
talow, Also grete as dyse; nym Pepir, Safroun, & grynd alle to-gederys, &
do in [th]e wombe of [th]e chepe, [th]at is, [th]e mawe; & se[th]e hem wyl,
& serue forth.

Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez
xl.  Puddyng of purpaysse.  Take [th]e Blode of hym, & [th]e grece of hym
self, & Ote-mele, & Salt, & Pepir, & Gyngere, & melle [th]ese to-gederys
wel, & [th]an putte [th]is in [th]e Gutte of [th]e purpays, & [th]an lat it
se[th]e esyli, & not hard, a good whylys; & [th]an take hym vppe, & broyle
hym a lytil, & [th]an serue f[orth].

Not a raisin in sight.

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
renfrow at skylands.net

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 09:57:45 PDT
From: "pat fee" <lcatherinemc at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Pennsic Potluck

  There is a recipe for Haggis in my family cook book.  If I remember right
it is made with oats, bits of pre cooked mutton,leeks, currents, cream, or
good stock, with what ever dried fruit here was, and a bit of honey. This
was cooked slightly to soften the oats, then stuffed in the "bag" and cooked
for an unbelievable length of time, 6 hours I think.

Lady Katherine McGuire

Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 05:12:07 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Pennsic Potluck

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> To which Adamantius replied:
> <snip>
> > I recall an early recipe for a haggis (presumably a faux haggis or some
> > kinda warner) made from poached eggs. Another close approximation would
> > be a fronchemoyle, again, a variant on the white pudding theme, boiled
> > in a stomach sack.
> >
> > There are several English haggis recipes that are nearly
> > indistinguishable from a white pudding recipe, generally involving
> > breadcrumbs instead of oats (although even now some white puds do call
> > for oats), with suet, cream, spices, and in some cases, I believe, fruit
> > such as dried Raisins of Corance.
>
> Ok, what is a fronchemoyle or even a white pudding?

A white pudding is, for practical purposes, a sausage made from either a
light-colored meat, fat, a starch element like rice, breadcrumbs or
oats, with or without cream and/or eggs, and in some cases the starch
and fat, with spices and salt, but without meat. They're cheap and
filling, and probably derive from the need for dietary fat in the days
before central heating. There are really elegant French versions today
involving capon breast, rabbit meat, cream, etc., while at the other end
of the scale you have some UK versions which have been known to resemble
well-seasoned modelling clay, based primarily on cracker crumbs and pork
fat (And even those aren't any worse than, say, scrapple. Yes, Elysant,
there are some good British ones too! Just trying to define a range from
my perceived best to worst.)

Probably the simplest and best explanation would be to say they're black
puddings without the blood.

As for Fronchemoyle, I believe Cindy Renfrow posted a recipe from a
15th-century Harleian MS, there's also one in MS Douce 257, c. ~1381
C.E. The name supposedly derives from the name of the second stomach of
cows, sheep, and other ruminants. It's a pudding boiled in a stomach,
like haggis, made from breadcrumbs, diced fat (in this case sheep's suet
or tallow), eggs, pepper, saffron, and probably salt, boiled and served
in slices. Probably quite a lot like the stuffed derma you can get in
Kosher delis in New York.

> > I don't know that I accept the idea, though, that haggis became a food
> > of the lower classes; I guess that depends on what one considers lower
> > classes. In Scotland, the farmers who butchered mutton and ate the
> > innards that wouldn't keep well, and the nobles who hunted for various
> > types of deer and made haggis from their innards, aren't what I'd call
> > especially lower classes.
>
> Ok. Do we have any haggis recipes from before 1600? Are these English
> haggis recipes that you mention from before 1600?

Cindy posted at least one recipe from before 1600 that does indeed call
for organ meats (intestines and the attached fat, or Ropis and their
Tallow, or some such) boiled and chopped. As you've spotted, though, no
fruit. Pat Fee mentioned fruit in her family cookbook. I wonder if
perhaps this is a lowland Scots version of haggis, and when it's from?
The English versions of haggis that call for breadcrumbs and cream are
pretty late as a general thing. There's one, I think, in Gervase
Markham's _The English Hus-Wife_ , published in 1615 but the recipes
appear to be older than that. There may be one in Kenelm Digby's book,
and I think there's one in Giulielma Penn's recipe collection (late 17th
century) and in Martha Washington's Boke of Cookery. The latter, I
believe, calls for fruit, but I'm not sure, and I'll have to go digging
through books another time.

Adamantius

Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 09:15:36 PDT
From: "pat fee" <lcatherinemc at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: SC - haggis

>From: Stefan li Rous <stefan at texas.net>
>Lady Katherine McGuire said:
> >   There is a recipe for Haggis in my family cook book.  If I remember right
> > it is made with oats, bits of pre cooked mutton,leeks, currents, cream, or
> > good stock, with what ever dried fruit here was, and a bit of honey. This
> > was cooked slightly to soften the oats, then stuffed in the "bag" and cooked
> > for an unbelievable length of time, 6 hours I think.
>
>Thank you. Your cookbook does cover a wide spread of years. Is there any
>indication of when this particular recipe dates from? Interesting. Fruit
>and cream and mutton and oats. It seems to incorporate a wide variety of
>what I was beginning think of as different types of haggis.

  I called the photographer who is working on the book and she looked up the
haggis recipe I remembered.  The first date on it was 1594.  She looked
through the section that the recipe was from and yes there were several
others some just oats suet and leeks, some with organ meats and veggies, But
the one  spoke of has a note that seems to be atranslation of a note from
the 1594 addition, This appeared on a 1878 recopy. it said in effect that
this haggis had been served to a member of the English royal family on a
visit to his Scots hunting lodge, and that it was a sore wast of good
provider, as the person of royal birth had consumed enough to feed the
household for a week. I went down to her studio this morning to see this for
myself. There was also an added note that I copied and had my mother-in-law
see if she could translate,that said that this haggis was not a proper
haggis as it was designed to show the guest the wealth of the family and
proper haggis( I think this refers to the haggis made with oats, leftover
meat,leeks and broth. was a "goode fillen" for a honest hard working
Scotsman

  Lady Katherine McGuire

Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 01:58:16 -0500
From: LYN M PARKINSON <allilyn at juno.com>
Subject: Re: SC - haggis

Stefan writes >> It seems to incorporate a wide variety of
what I was beginning think of as different types of haggis.<<

I recall seeing some period drawings of cooks working over huge
cauldrons, which seem to contain a number of different items.  Dorothy
Hartly describes the technique of cooking multiple items in one pot,
which seems to have gone on into her lifetime, in some parts of England.

Perhaps our various haggis -es [haggii?] are, originally, simply
combinations than can be easily cooked in this most convenient
container--an animal's stomach.  It later becomes Robert Burns' version.

Allison
allilyn at juno.com, Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands, Pittsburgh, PA
Kingdom of Aethelmearc

Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 15:04:33 -0400
From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler at chesapeake.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Trimarian Haggis

Some years ago, I picked up a Scottish "Cookery Book" put out by The Scottish
Women's Rural Institutes, which has several recipes for haggis, including the
following Sweet Haggis (it still uses a sheep's stomach, but you could still use
a "bag"):

3 1/2 lbs. oatmeal, 2 lbs. suet,  2 lbs. raisins or sultannas, 1 tablespoon
salt, l level dessertspoon black pepper, 3 dessertspoons sugar, 1 breakfast cup
cold water.

Method:  Mix all together and put into haggis bag (sheep's or pig's stomach),
sew up.  Prick with a fork, tie in cloth, put into boiling water and boil for 3
hours.

What you describe also could pass for a Clootie Dumpling:

3 oz. flour, 3  ozs. breadcrumbs, 3 ozs. chopped suet, 1 teaspoon ground
cinnamon, 2 ozs. sultannas, 1 teaspoon ground ginger or a grate of nutmeg, 2
ozs. currants, 1/2 tsp. bicarbonate of soda, 2 ozs. brown sugar,  1
tablespoonful syrup, about 3/4 cup sour milk or buttermilk.

Mix all together with enough milk to make a fairly soft consistency. Dip a
pudding cloth into boiling water and wring it.  Dredge it well with flour, set
it in a basin and spoon in the mixture.  Draw together evenly; leave enough room
for the pudding to swell and tie tightly with string.  Place a plate in the
bottom of the steaming pan.  Have enough boiling water to well-cover the
dumpling.  Simmer for fully 2 hours, adding more boiling water at intervals.
Turn out on to hot ashet (sic)   Dredge with caster sugar and serve with hot
sauce.

Both of these sound great, though I've tried neither...and am not sure what
"syrup" is, though it could be the "golden syrup" we discussed on another
thread.  As to what a hot "ashet" is, I haven't a clue.  Nor do I know what the
"hot sauce" is...there was no recipe for it!

Kiri

Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 09:05:09 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Haggis and Strawberries

Lee-Gwen Booth wrote: 
> I was having a discussion with a (non-cook) SCA friend and she mentioned
> that she felt that Haggis would have only been a peasant dish in period (her
> grandparents were Scottish and she says they never ate Haggis partly for
> this reason).

The prejudice about offal being a food for the poor is comparatively
modern, and haggis has, as far as I know, always been considered a
rather festive dish (think, even in modern terms, of its presentation,
flamed with whisky, accompanied by pipes, etc.). This is compounded by
the fact that haggis has traditionally been made with the innards of
fresh venison about as often as with those of sheep. You could argue
that the shift in the socio-economic status of the dish occurred when
sheep farming became considered less of an occupation for the
well-to-do, but the fact is that there are several haggis recipes (some
resembling modern recipes made with offal, fat, and some kind of grain
or starch product, some not) in the known English medieval and
renaissance recipe sources. These sources pretty much have to be viewed
as either A) specifically aimed at the noble and/or the wealthy, or B)
hand-copied or printed books that were expensive until the seventeenth
century or so, in which case, see A) above.
 
Adamantius

Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 18:40:40 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Haggis and Strawberries

At 3:57 PM +1000 8/21/00, Lee-Gwen Booth wrote:
>I was having a discussion with a (non-cook) SCA friend and she mentioned
>that she felt that Haggis would have only been a peasant dish in period (her
>grandparents were Scottish and she says they never ate Haggis partly for
>this reason).

She is mistaken. Haggis shows up in _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery 
Books_, which is clearly a collection of recipes for the nobility.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/

Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 09:29:17 -0500
From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler at chesapeake.net>
Subject: SC - Haggis, revisited

I have visited a site on the web, www.scottish-haggis.com, 
the website for McKean's of Scotland.  They have a
variety of haggis which they sell, along with other things.  They also
offer information on how to cook the "beastie".

Kiri

Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 12:15:03 -0800
From: Susan Fox-Davis <selene at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Presents

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> Selene said:
> > In other gifties, I got PLEYN DELIGHT
> > and Clarissa Dickson Wright's little book on the Haggis.  The more of
> > her stuff
> > I read, the more I wish we had her in the SCA, I know there are SCA
> > people in the UK.
>
> I've not heard of this book (or author) before. More details please.
> Does she give any documentably period recipes for haggis? For that
> matter, I'm sure any documentably period Scottish recipes at all would
> be of interest to many.

"The Haggis : A Little History" by Clarissa Dickson Wright, Not really helpful
for official documentation but lots of fun, it's just a wee trinket of a
booklet, a four-inch square hardcover, you know the type.  She does trace the
history of haggis, both etymologically and gastronomically, back through SCA
period and long before.  The details and ordering information are on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565543645/ref=cm_mp_wl/105-4876789-9255153?colid=3CH33WX3IDH3Q

Selene

Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 20:46:26 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: SC - Haggis Recipe-OOP

craig.jones at airservices.gov.au writes:
<< Anyone got a recipe for haggis?  Ras, surely you can help? >>

A Detailed Haggis Recipe 
(from Michael Prothro)

        1 sheep's stomach, thoroughly cleaned
        The liver, heart, and lights (lungs) of the sheep
        1 lb Beef suet
        2 large Onions
        2 tb Salt
        1 ts Freshly ground black pepper
        1/2 ts Cayenne or red pepper
        1/2 ts Allspice
        2 lb Dry oatmeal (the old-fashioned, slow-cooking kind)
        2-3 cups broth (in which the liver, heart and lights were cooked)

What you need: Canning kettle or a large spaghetti pot, 16- to 20 quart size 
with a lid to fit it; meat grinder; cheesecloth 

What to do: If the butcher has not already cut apart and trimmed the heart, 
liver and lungs, do that first.  It involves cutting the lungs off the 
windpipe, cutting the heart off the large blood vessels and cutting it open 
to rinse it, so that it can cook more
quickly. The liver, too, has to be freed from the rest. Put them in a 4-quart 
pot with 2 to 3 cups water, bring to a boil, and simmer for about an hour and 
a half. Let it all cool, and keep the broth. 

Run the liver and heart through the meat grinder. Take the lungs and cut out 
as much of the gristly part as you easily can, then run them through the 
grinder, too. Next, put the raw beef suet through the grinder. As you finish 
grinding each thing, put it in the big kettle. Peel, slice and chop the 
onions, then add them to the meat in the kettle. Add the salt and spices and 
mix. 

The oatmeal comes next, and while it is customary to toast it or brown it 
very lightly in the oven or in a heavy bottomed pan on top of the stove, this 
is not absolutely necessary. When the oatmeal has been thoroughly mixed with 
the rest of it, add the
2 cups of the broth left from boiling the meat. See if when you take a 
handful, it sticks together. If it does, do not add the third cup of broth. 
If it is still crumbly and will not hold together very well, add the rest of 
the broth and mix thoroughly. Have
the stomach smooth side out and stuff it with the mixture, about 
three-quarters full. Sew up the openings. Wrap it in cheesecloth, so that 
when it is cooked you can handle it. 

Now, wash out the kettle and bring about 2 gallons of water to a boil in it. 
Put in the haggis and prick it all over with a skewer so that it does not 
burst. You will want to do this a couple of times early in the cooking span. 
Boil the haggis gently for about 4 or 5 hours. If you did not have any 
cheesecloth for wrapping the haggis, you can use a large clean dishtowel. 
Work it under with kitchen spoons to make a sling with which you can lift out 
the haggis in one piece. You will probably want to wear lined rubber gloves 
to protect your hands from the hot water while you lift it out with the wet 
cloth. (You put the dish cloth in the pot only after the haggis is done; you 
do not cook the towel with the haggis as you would the cheesecloth.) 

Note: Even if the butcher has cleaned the stomach, you will probably want to 
go over it again. Turn the stomach shaggy side out and rinse. Rub it in a 
sinkful of cold water. Change the water and repeat as many times as necessary, until the water stays pretty clear and handling it does not produce much sediment as the water drains out of the sink. 

Ras

Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 21:40:50 +0200
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: "Cindy M. Renfrow" <cindy at thousandeggs.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Liber Cure Cocorum

>A fifteenth century cookbook with a recipe for
>Haggis (pp. 52 and 53)?   Huzzah!  Could this be
>the long awaited period reference to the Queen of
>Sausages?
>
>Mordonna

There are plenty of haggis recipes in Harl. 279 & 4016.   Here's just
one example.

Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez

xxv.  Hagws of a schepe.  Take [th]e Roppis with [th]e talour, & parboyle
hem; [th]an hakke hem smal; grynd pepir, & Safroun, & brede, & 3olkys of
Eyroun, & Raw kreme or swete Mylke:  do al to-gederys, & do in [th]e grete
wombe of the Schepe, [th]at is, the mawe; & [th]an se[the hym an serue
forth ynne.

25.  Haggis of a sheep.  Take the Guts with the tallow, & parboil them;
then hack them small; grind pepper, & Saffron, & bread, & yolks of Eggs, &
Raw cream or sweet Milk:  put all together, & put in the great stomach of
the Sheep, that is, the stomach; & then seethe him and serve forth in.

Cindy

Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 18:34:40 +0200
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: "Cindy M. Renfrow" <cindy at thousandeggs.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period haggis recipes

>Thank you, Cindy! I've got a number of recipes for haggis in my
>haggis-msg file that I've collected over the years. Some are
>"traditional". Some are definitely post-period, involving things
>like red peppers. A few, such as this one, are period but best
>described as "vegetarian" haggis.
>
>Do you have any period recipes that besides the grains and other
>fillers, include the other organ meats? The "traditional" recipes
>seem to include these, but the only documentably period recipes I
>have so far don't.

I see we've had part of this conversation before.

Well, here's this recipe that includes pork, cheese, & pullets, but most of
the haggis recipes just use tallow & filler, unless you count "roppis" as
including organs other than the intestines.  I think the dish was intended
as a type of savory pudding, used as a meal extender.

Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez

xxj.  An Entrayle.  Take a chepis wombe; take Polettys y-rostyd, & hew hem;
[th]en take Porke, chese, & Spicery, & do it on a morter, & grynd alle
y-fere; [th]en take it vppe with Eyroun y-swonge, & do in [th]e wombe, &
Salt, & se[th]e hem tyl he be y-nowe, & serue forth.

21.  An Entrail.  Take a sheep's stomach; take Pullets roasted, & hew them;
then take Pork, cheese, & Spicery, & put it in a mortar, & grind all
together; then take it up with Eggs mixed, & put in the stomach, & Salt, &
seethe them till he is enough, & serve forth.

Cindy

Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 11:28:03 -0700
From: Susan Fox-Davis <selene at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Haggis: [Fwd: News of the Weird]

Elizabeth A Heckert wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Aug 2001 09:39:57 -0400 "Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy"
> <troy at asan.com> writes:
> > While I don't consider myself a real authority on the subject, I will state 
> > that none of the dozens of haggises I have encountered myself have been 
> > gray,
>
>     So what is good haggis like?  I had some at the Richmond Highland
> games and Bleeaahh!  I happen to love scrapple, although I haven't had
> any in years, and that was wonderfully spiced.  The haggis had all the
> qualities I despise in oatmeal:  bland, glutinous and heavy.  If it had
> been spiced a bit, I would have enjoyed it, and from scotch eggs to
> scones, the rest of the food at that fair is fantastic ... well maybe not
> the deep-fried Mars bars, but then I've never worked up the intestinal
> fortitude to try those ...
>
>     Elizabeth

The reason that Haggis made by most Americans is goopy and awful is because
they use American rolled oats.  Using steel-cut oats, the result is more like
the real thing, a kind of oatmeal dressing with lamb giblets.  I use plenty
of onions and a large pinch of sage as well as salt and pepper.  The color
can be improved with the addition of commercial browning or just by sauteeing
the organ meats, onions and/or toasting the oatmeal before stuffing into the
paunch.   But any steamed pudding is going to have a generally pale color as
compared with baked or roasted products, just deal with it.

Selene, Caid

Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 16:51:56 -0400
From: "Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy" <troy at asan.com>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Haggis: [Fwd: News of the Weird]

Elizabeth A Heckert wrote:
>     Steel cut oats makes sense!  It's the only way you can get me within
> ten feet of oatmeal.  Also, as I said, the stuff I had tasted like
> wallpaper paste.  The funny thing is, I don't even remember the colour of
> it, it must have looked fairly innocuous!

Ecchhh. Actually, it's possible to use rolled oats in haggis, but the
proportions need to be a little different. A proper haggis should be
sort of hashy in consistency, sort of like a moist pilaf. One of the
main secrets of attaining this consistency is to use a recipe that calls
for added fat, rather than one which omits things like a small amount of
grated suet. People do weird things like substituting a lot of liquid
for the fat, creating a sloppy goo, or nothing in place of it, creating
dry modelling clay. But 99% of all substandard haggis I've seen has been
because the cook simply forgot that HAGGIS IS A *&$%^# at *&%# SAUSAGE.
There is no such thing as an effective haggis without salt or a viable
substitute. Ditto pepper, at the very least. Pennyroyal, or, for the
squeamish, mint, are helpful additions, as is a pinch of nutmeg,
although this is a little New Wave by haggis standards. Thyme is a good
addition in lieu of the mints.

So, we're talking about a sausage filled with dark-brown meats, mixed
with onion, [usually] brown toasted oats, fat and herbs. Brown ales of
various kinds occasionally go in to moisten the filling. The filling,
when mixed and cooked, tends to look like darkish buckwheat kasha. How
could it be gray?

I submit the possibility that while there may be, or have been, some
small percentage of gray haggis(es), they are probably not the norm, and
I suspect that a lot of people who discuss the grayness of haggis have
never actually tried it or even seen it.

Adamantius

Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 16:46:04 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] haggis?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

On Aug 30, 2005, at 4:30 PM, Kathleen A Roberts wrote:
> i may find myself entering a haggis cooking competition, if the
> autocrats indeed go through with it.  (throw down a gauntlet at ME,
> will ye!?!?!?!) 8)
>
> anyone got any tried and true recipes?  i know the alton brown
> recipe, and several similar, but usually see 'spices' in the recipe
> as opposed to exactly what spices. now, i know what you put in
> scrapply, but that's a different animal...  literally, i guess.
>
> oh yeah, and good scotch to go with it.

I have a good one that I usually use, someplace. It's a synthesis of
several published recipes, mostly the Elizabeth Luard version in "The
Old World Kitchen", and some of the one in one of the Jeff Smith
books. I think he advocates salt and pepper, plus, IIRC, nutmeg, and
mint in lieu of pennyroyal. I'll see if I can locate it.

90% of the bad haggises I've encountered over the years have been
made with insufficient salt and pepper. It's a floggin' sausage, and
should be aggressively seasoned. Fresh-ground pepper is best. Also,
my experience is that it is insanity to leave out the suet. Steer
clear of the recipes that don't use them; it's not like leaving it
out will make a low-cholesterol product; it's just a drier, slightly
lower-cholesterol product.

Adamantius

Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 09:04:07 +1200
From: Adele de Maisieres <ladyadele at paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] haggis?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
> 90% of the bad haggises I've encountered over the years have been
> made with insufficient salt and pepper. It's a floggin' sausage, and
> should be aggressively seasoned. Fresh-ground pepper is best. Also,
> my experience is that it is insanity to leave out the suet. Steer
> clear of the recipes that don't use them; it's not like leaving it
> out will make a low-cholesterol product; it's just a drier, slightly
> lower-cholesterol product.

Another common cause of Bad Haggis is the use of the wrong kind of
oats-- ie rolled or flaked oats rather than steel-cut oats.  The right
oats make it lightish, slightly dryish, and slightly crumbly.  The wrong
oats make it solid, heavy, and gooey.

I agree on the seasoning-- salt and plenty of freshly ground pepper,
plus a little nutmeg or mace, or if you're inclined that way, a little
allspice.
-- 
Adele de Maisieres

Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 18:20:31 -0400
From: "Mairi Ceilidh" <jjterlouw at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] haggis?
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

This is from a post I sent to a local cooks list quite some time ago.
Getting the ingredients to make a proper haggis is very difficult lately, so
I developed a recipe that works well, and seems to be acceptable even to
native Scots.  I am posting both a traditional recipe, and my version for
use when the ingredients aren't available (i.e.:  when you don't have  
your own sheep to butcher).

Enjoy!  I enjoy making haggis and eating it.

Traditional Haggis

1 sheep's lungs (may be omitted if not available)
1 sheep's stomach
1 sheep heart
1 sheep liver
1 pound fresh suet (kidney leaf fat is preferred)
1 cup oatmeal (steel cut, not rolled oats)
3 onions, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup stock
1/2 cup Single Malt Whisky

Wash lungs and stomach well, rub with salt and rinse. Remove membranes and
excess fat. Soak in cold salted water for several hours. Place the lungs in
a pan of cold water with the windpipe hanging over the edge (to facilitate
the removal of any impurities) and slowly bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and
simmer for about 20 minutes.  Chop fairly finely.  Turn stomach inside out
for stuffing. Cover heart and liver with cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce
heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Chop heart and coarsely grate liver.
Toast oatmeal in a skillet on top of the stove, stirring frequently, until
golden.  Chop suet finely.  Combine all ingredients and mix well. Loosely
pack mixture into stomach, about two-thirds full. Remember, oatmeal expands
in cooking. Press any air out of stomach and truss securely. Put into
boiling water to cover. Simmer for 3 hours, uncovered, adding more water as
needed to maintain water level. Prick stomach several times with a sharp
needle when it begins to swell; this keeps the bag from bursting. Place on a
hot platter, removing trussing strings.

Have a piper play Scotland the Brave as the platter is carried to the table.
Have a bard ready, sgine dubh in hand, to pay honor to the haggis in the
time honored words of the National Poet of Scotland (Ode to the Haggis by
Robert Burns).  Serve with Tatties and Neeps (potatoes and turnips, boiled
and mashed together), Oat Cakes and Single Malt.  Listen for the change in
your patterns of speech.

Now, it is all very well and good to provide recipes like this, but it is
seldom that one has a chance to lay hands on all the authentic ingredients.
For that reason, I developed a version that seems to be acceptable to native
Scots and cause less aversion in PA Americans (yes, that stands for pansy
a$$).

Mother Mairi's Haggis

1 lb. ground lamb
1 lb. chicken livers
1 lb. hard leaf suet
1-2 large onions
1 cup McCann's Steel Cut Oats (available at Publix)
Salt, Pepper, Nutmeg to taste
1/2 cup broth (from cooking livers)
1/2 cup Single Malt

Chop onions and sauté with ground lamb.  Boil livers in just enough salted
water.  Cool and grate.  Chop suet finely.  (The chopping can be done in a
food processor).  Toast the oats until they are light golden brown.  Mix all
ingredients, and wrap in a double layer of cheese cloth (or place in a
pudding bag).  Be sure to do this over the pot in which you plan to cook the
haggis so that none of the juices are lost.  Wrap tightly and put in pop
with the fold down.  Add water to cover and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat
and simmer for 1 1/2-2 hours.  Remove to a plate and open cheese cloth
carefully.  Even more carefully transfer haggis to a large sheet of plastic
wrap.  Fold plastic to completely encase and place on a heated serving
platter.  (Putting it in the plastic facilitates serving and makes the bards
performance work better when he plunges the sgine dubh into the "steaming,
reeking pudding".)  Serve as noted above.

Have fun!  Haggis is not the evil some make it out to be (neither is fruit
cake).  Most people who turn up their noses at organ meats are to ignorant
or prejudiced to try them.  I have no patience with those who would condemn
things they have never tasted.  Just don't offer me chilled monkey brains or
eyeball soup.  Even I have my limits.

Mairi Ceilidh

Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:27:12 -0500
From: silverr0se at aol.com
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] looking for maire's haggis recipe
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

  I can testify that _this_ haggis is absolutely delicious and still  
fun for freaking out otherwise stalwart fighter-types.

Renata

-----Original Message-----
From: selene at earthlink.net
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Sent: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 7:37 AM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] looking for maire's haggis recipe

I have a haggis-inspired sweet pudding recipe:  Sweet Haggis

Adapted from the Scottish Womens' Rural Association Cookery Book

A subtletie of sorts, really a steamed oat pudding with no nasty old
sheep-guts.

1/4 lb. beef suet
1/2 cup raisins
2 cups oatmeal [toast it first]
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
3 tbsp. sugar
1/2 cup cold water
muslin bag to cook it in

Toast oatmeal at 400?F for 10 minutes. Skin and chop or grate suet
finely. Mix all ingredients together until soft consistancy. Wet muslin
bag and put mixture into it until more than half full [to allow for
expansion of oatmeal]. Sew or tie up tightly and put it on an old plate
inside a large pot of boiling water. Boil for 3 hours; then serve with
all due ceremony, perhaps accompanied with fake bagpipes and fake  
poetry.

I use half steel-cut and half rolled oats, the former for chewy
consistancy and the latter for binding power. The true vegetarian crowd
can use shortening in a pinch. I also like to add 1 tsp. mixed spice to
the mix.

Happy Hogmany,
Selene

Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 15:38:37 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] haggis question
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Jan 4, 2007, at 3:00 PM, Kathleen A Roberts wrote:

> while fixating on early irish food research, a question
> popped to mind...
>
> is haggis strictly scottish, never traveling beyond the
> borders, or would it be a dish that would have been
> known/done/served around the british?  is it merely a
> generalized pudding or a country specific treasure?

There are non-Scottish references to haggis; I suppose it's
conceivable they might be more or less coincidental. So, for example,
we have 14th or 15th-century English recipes for Haggas d'Almayne
(whose name suggests a German origin, which is odd, in a way).

But in addition, we have northern English and Lowland Scots haggis
recipes that are distinctly different, but still recognizable
variants (for example, one in which the gut is cooked and chopped
into the pudding rather than used as a casing, or an 18th-century
English one that calls for cream and breadcrumbs instead of oats).

> i suppose this comes from looking for things people have
> heard of and that there are recipes for as opposed to the
> dominant 'nothing written down' i keep banging into with
> the irish food.

We just don't seem to have a lot of the same type of evidence for
Scottish and Irish foods that we have, say, for English eating habits
in period. There's some, but probably not as much or of the same
type. It would be tempting to assume that there's some very old Irish
haggis equivalent (if that's where you're going with this), but apart
from English-style white puddings, drisheen (which is sort of like
sheep's-blood cheese), and a mock goose in modern Irish cuisine that
calls for a hog's maw to be stuffed with potatoes, onions, and fat,
and roasted, I'm not aware of any real evidence for one.

Adamantius

Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 15:03:47 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] haggis question
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

It may not always have been a sheep's stomach.
Wikipedia mentions

It's unknown who discovered and prepared this for the first time. The
most likely origin of the dish is from the days of the old Scottish
cattle drovers <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_drovers>. When the
men left the highlands <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Highlands>
to drive their cattle to market <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market> in
Edinburgh <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh> the women would
prepare rations for them to eat during the long journey down through the
glens <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen>. 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.

Another theory, put forward by food historian Clarissa Dickson-Wright
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarissa_Dickson-Wright>, is that haggis
was invented as a way of cooking quick-spoiling offal
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offal> near the site of a hunt, without
the need to carry along an additional cooking vessel. The liver and
kidneys could be grilled <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grill> directly
over a fire, but this treatment was unsuitable for the stomach,
intestines, or lungs. Chopping up the lungs and stuffing the stomach
with them and whatever fillers might have been on hand, then boiling the
assembly ? likely in a vessel made from the animal's hide
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal%27s_hide> ? was one way to make
sure these parts did not go to waste. (Dickson-Wright 12).Dickson
Wright, Clarissa <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarissa_Dickson_Wright>
(1998). /The Haggis: A Little History/. Pelican Publishing Company. ISBN
1-56554-364-5
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? 
title=Special:Booksources&isbn=1565543645>.

Other theories are based on Scottish slaughtering practices. When a
Chieftan 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.

Johnnae

Date: Fri, 01 Jan 2010 09:41:54 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] 'Tis the season.

On Jan 1, 2010, at 2:35 AM, Antonia di Benedetto Calvo wrote:
> I also think lungs + the right oats are what make a really nice texture. 

They do. I have pretty severe issues with rolled oats in most applications, except maybe brewing. If you do ever do have occasion to make a haggis without lungs, a roughly equivalent amount of spleen (we get pork ones around here) work pretty well as a better option than simply omitting the ultra-rich, flavorful, gamy, slightly spongy meat. When it's ground the texture issues are largely irrelevant anyway.

I guess one could argue that making a haggis without having access to freshly slaughtered sheep parts is sort of like putting the cart before the sheep anyway, so by extension, a lot of what might have been seen as sacrosanct could be... well... reexamined.

Adamantius

Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 09:06:39 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Haggis Tempest
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

"HAGGIS was invented by the English before being hijacked by Scottish
nationalists, a food historian has claimed.
Catherine Brown has discovered references to the dish in a recipe book
dated 1615, /The English Hus-wife/ by Gervase Markham."

<clipped>

Johnnae
==============

I'm having a little line trouble with my connection, so I'm not able to pull in all the articles, so if I err pray forgive me.

As I understand Brown's argument, haggis first appears in Markham, the 
Scottish use of the term haggis only begins in the 18th Century, ergo haggis is an English dish only recently adopted by the Scots.

While the recipe in Markham may be the closest to modern haggis, there are recipes for the dish in Liber Cure Cocurum and the Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books, predating Markham by almost 200 years.  As for the late adoption of haggis by the Scots, William Dunbar uses the term in The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie, written in the first decade of the 16th Century, a century before Markham.  Haggis may have been an English dish originally (possibly adopted and adapted from the Romans), but it's not as recent addition to the Scottish table as Ms Brown seems to think.

Bear 

Date: Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:19:42 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] 'Tis the season.

On Jan 1, 2010, at 1:40 AM, Antonia di Benedetto Calvo wrote:
<<< My understanding is that US shoppers have the same problem we do in NZ-- the authorities are hysterical and have banned sheep's lungs, which makes it a lot trickier to produce a haggis. >>>

Seriously? Lungs are lungs. It's really the fat that makes the difference. I've made perfectly decent haggis using veal livers and hearts, pork spleens in lieu of lungs (basically you need some fairly vascular tissue, lots of blood and strong, gamy flavors). Not indistinguishable from the same thing made from sheep parts, but very similar, and for the many, many people who haven't tried the real thing, and many who have, it comes pretty close.

I wouldn't say it's exactly the same, but it's close enough to quash the "the best is the enemy of the good" crowd.

Adamantius

Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2011 12:47:31 -0800
From: lilinah at earthlink.net
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [SCA-cooks] haggis

RESEND with special characters replaced with plain vowels and (much) 
additional info.

There is a 16th c. recipe for a Persian dish called gipa (hard g, as 
is good), which is strikingly like haggis. Here is the current 
version of my translation from Fragner's German translation:

Bert G. Fragner
"Zur Erforschung der kulinarischen Kultur Irans"
(Toward an Exploration of Iranian Culinary Arts)
in Die Welt des Islams 23-24 (1984), pp. 320-360.

From Maddatal-hayat, resala dar 'elm-e tabbaki
("The substance of life, a treatise on the art of cooking")
written in 1003 AH (September 16, 1594 to Sept. 1595 CE)
by Master Ostad Nurollah, Chief Court Cook of Shah 'Abbas I (r. 1587-1629)

gipa-polaw (n.40)
in Fragner, pp. 350-351

Know that, cooked according to rule and regulation, gipa is a tasty 
dish, when it is prepared properly. Thus it is done: Clean rumen 
stomachs, abdominal networks and mesentery[i.] / chitterlings 
(shirdan va charba-ye ruda va shekanba) of sheep several times and 
afterwards rub with Iraqi soap (?, sabun-e 'eraqi) using a napkin and 
then rinse again. Then shred/chop a lot of meat, and it is important 
that it has no bones. Fat-tail from sheep is used in large 
quantities, such that cracklings are processed and removed. [In the 
hot fat] put onions in the weight of two mann according to Tabriz 
measurement, also fifty mesqal[ii.] of spices, valerian (?, 
sonbola[iii.]) and davala (probably a kind tree lichen) in necessary 
quantity, and finally a half-mann of rice. Some people add saffron as 
well. The quantity of meat should be two mann and tail fat equal to 
one mann -- these are the ingredients for a whole meal. All this is 
mixed [over the fire]. The lower the liquid, the better it is, 
because so much onion is used for this dish. If one uses too much 
liquid, the food loses its consistency and is overcooked. Now the 
sheep's rumen and the other [innards] are filled, as should be, so 
they do not burst. Once they are filled, they are sewn shut, placed 
in a kettle and cooked, until they are soft. Then wipe them off and 
wash them in cold water. If one lines the bottom of the kettle with 
sheep ribs, [the gipa] is particularly good. The latter is a creation 
of my very own self! Then layer the rumen stomach and the other 
[guts] nicely [in a vessel] over one another, drip fat and clear meat 
soup (shorba) there over and let the whole marinade. The fire must be 
set up so [low] that the dish simmers very slowly until morning and, 
when it is done, is not burned, but soft and lightly browned. In the 
morning, place a thin flat bread on it and the gipa done.

40) gipa is obviously a very traditional category of dishes in which 
rice is combined with offal. In cookbooks from the 20th century 
gipa-dishes are no longer mentioned with one exception. Only Forough 
Hekmat (The Art of Persian Cooking, Tehran, 1961, p. 82 f.) describes 
two gipa recipes. With regard to Boshaq-e at'ema[iv.], he says 
explicitly that we are dealing with very old-fashioned food, that 
traditionally was eaten in the early morning (similarly to 
kalla-pacha, soup made from sheep's heads and feet). As already 
mentioned, Ba'urchi-Baghdadi[v.] (1521) still gives a total of nine 
gipa recipes (Karnama, p. 166-172).

*** my notes ***

[1.] Mesentery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesentery
(not sure what American butchers call it, if they call it anything... 
anyone know?)

[ii.] mesqal = mithqal

[iii.] sonbola = sumbul, which often = jatamansi = spikenard

[iv.] Boshaq-e at'ema (died 1426 or 1436) was a poet, author, and 
lexicographer who wrote works in the language of food, but whose 
subtext was social and political criticism. Boshaq is a contraction 
of Abu Ishaq, meaning Father of Isaac; standard naming form in the 
area, to call a married adult after the name of their first born son 
(a woman could be Umm Ishaq, Mother of Isaac). ''-e at'ema'' means 
''of food''.

[v.] Mohammad 'Ali Ba'urchi-Baghdadi is the author of the oldest 
known Persian recipe collection, Kar-nameh (or Karnama) dar bab-e 
tabbakhi va san'at-e an ("Manual on cooking and its craft"), written 
for a Safavid prince and dated 1521. The Mongolian word "ba'urchi" 
means "cook" and he came from a Turkish-speaking family. His father 
was a trained chef in the service of the Aq-Qoyunlu Prince Budaq 
Mirza and taught his son his skill. Some scholars have speculated 
that Nurollah was a descendant of Ba'urchi Baghdadi, as several of 
Nurollah's ancestors had been involved in the earlier Safavid court 
kitchen.

(side note: Alot is the name of a town in India, not a word in 
English. If one means a large quantity, it is two words: a lot)
-- 
Urtatim [that's err-tah-TEEM]
the persona formerly known as Anahita

Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 08:09:58 +0000 (GMT)
From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach@yahoo.de>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks@lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Middle Eastern haggis

It's not Middle Eastern, but there is a recipe for stuffed sheep's stomach from sixteenth-century Germany. 

Take lean veal and clean bacon, chop it together small, add small raisins, and break four eggs into it. Salt it, season it with pepper and various spices, and make it neither too thick nor too thin with the eggs.

Then take it, fill it into the cleaned sheeps' stomachs, each only half full, close them with a wooden skewer at the top, lay them in boiling water and boil them like sausages until they are well cooked and all hard. Then take them out of the water and cut them into nice slices. Make a fine brown sauce of lebkuchen and wine, season it with all spices, and give it a lovely savour. Then place the abovementioned slices in it, salt it and taste it.
(Klosterkochbuch III.30)

Unfortunately, provenance and transmission are lousy for this one. At some point an original manuscript existed, but it was lost in WWII (we think) and all we have now is a free transcrip?tion into modern High German from the nineteenth century. I plan to triy it as soon as I can get my hands on a sheep's stomach. The filling works nicely in a puddingcloth.

=============
Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous@austin.rr.com> schrieb am 6:35 Dienstag, 5.November 2013:

On the Facebook Cooks Group, Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya said:
<<< Stuffed sheep's stomach appears in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman language cookbooks, as qiba, gipa, and zerbudil, respectively. Rice is often used as the grain filler, there is usually a large quantity of chopped onions, and sometimes the sheep's trotters are included? >>>

I have a bunch of haggis recipes, both period and non. Both vegetarian and traditional. But all I think all of these have a Scottish origin. 

Could you please detail some of these Middle Eastern versions? I'm particularly interested in how they vary from the Scottish ones. The rice, in particular, appears to be a change. But then rice doesn't grow in Scotland and I suspect oats don't grow that well in the Middle East. 

Stefan
===============

Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 10:49:43 -0200
From: Ana Vald?s <agora158@gmail.com>
To: Volker Bach <carlton_bach@yahoo.de>, 	Cooks within the SCA
	<sca-cooks@lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Middle Eastern haggis

In Sweden it's called p?lsa, its made in a pig stomach, filled with oats or
barley, lungs, liver and ansjovis.

Ana

On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 6:09 AM, Volker Bach <carlton_bach@yahoo.de> wrote:
<<< It's not Middle Eastern, but there is a recipe for stuffed sheep's stomach
from sixteenth-century Germany.

Take lean veal and clean bacon, chop it together small, add small raisins, and break four eggs into it.  Salt it, season it with pepper and various spices, and make it neither too thick nor too thin with the eggs.

Then take it, fill it into the cleaned sheeps' stomachs, each only half full, close them with a wooden skewer at the top, lay them in boiling water and boil them like sausages until they are well cooked and all hard. Then take them out of the water and cut them into nice slices. Make a fine brown sauce of lebkuchen and wine, season it with all spices, and give it a lovely savour. Then place the above mentioned Slices in it, salt it and taste it.
(Klosterkochbuch III.30) >>>

Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 23:52:55 -0200
From: Ana Vald?s <agora158@gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks@lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Middle Eastern haggis

<< How is "p?lsa" spelled?

And what is "ansjovis"?

Stefan >>

P?LSA (o with two dots over it)

ANSJOVIS are herring.

Ana

Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 20:24:19 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker@att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks@lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Middle Eastern haggis

<<< And what is "ansjovis"?
Stefan >>>

Try "anchovy."  Ansjovis refers to Engraulis encrasicolus, the European 
anchovy, or more broadly any small similar looking fish.

Bear

Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 12:29:07 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
From: <lilinah@earthlink.net>
To: SCA-Cooks <sca-cooks@lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Middle Eastern haggis

For the late 16th c. gipa, here's a re-post of a message i sent to this list Sunday 6 February 2011

There is a 16th c. recipe for a Persian dish called gipa (hard g, as in good), which is strikingly like haggis. Here is the current version of my translation from Fragner's German translation:

Bert G. Fragner
"Zur Erforschung der kulinarischen Kultur Irans"
(Toward an Exploration of Iranian Culinary Arts)
in Die Welt des Islams 23-24 (1984), pp. 320-360.

From Maddatal-hayat, resala dar 'elm-e tabbaki
("The substance of life, a treatise on the art of cooking")
written in 1003 AH (September 16, 1594 to Sept. 1595 CE)
by Master Ostad Nurollah, Chief Court Cook of Shah 'Abbas I (r. 1587-1629)

gipa-polaw (n.40)
in Fragner, pp. 350-351

Know that, cooked according to rule and regulation, gipa is a tasty dish, when it is prepared properly. Thus it is done: Clean rumen stomachs, abdominal networks and mesentery[i.] / chitterlings (shirdan va charba-ye ruda va shekanba) of sheep several times and afterwards rub with Iraqi soap (?, sabun-e 'eraqi) using a napkin and then rinse again. Then chop a lot of meat, and it is important that it has no bones. Fat-tail from sheep is used in large quantities, such that cracklings are processed and removed. [In the hot fat] put onions in the weight of two mann according to Tabriz measurement, also fifty mesqal[ii.] of spices, spikenard (sonbola[iii.]) and davala [probably a kind tree lichen] in necessary quantity, and finally a half-mann of rice. Some people add saffron as well. The quantity of meat should be two mann and tail fat equal to one mann -- these are the ingredients for a whole meal. All this is mixed [over the fire]. The lower the liquid, the better it is, because so much onion is used for this dish. If one uses too much liquid, the food loses its consistency and is overcooked. Now the sheep's rumen and the other [innards] are filled, as should be, so they do not burst. Once they are filled, they are sewn shut, placed in a kettle and cooked, until they are soft. Then wipe them off and wash them in cold water. If one lines the bottom of the kettle with sheep ribs, [the gipa] is particularly good. The latter is a creation of my very own self! Then layer the rumen stomach and the other [guts] nicely [in a vessel] over one another, drip fat and clear meat soup (shorba) thereover and let the whole marinade. The fire must be set up so [low] that the dish simmers very slowly until morning and, when it is done, is not burned, but soft and lightly browned. In the morning, place a thin flat bread on it and the gipa done.

40) [Bert Fragner's note] gipa is obviously a very traditional category of dishes in which rice is combined with offal. In cookbooks from the 20th century gipa-dishes are no longer mentioned with one exception. Only Forough Hekmat (The Art of Persian Cooking, Tehran, 1961, p. 82 f.) describes two gipa recipes. With regard to Boshaq-e at'ema[iv.], he says explicitly that we are dealing with very old-fashioned food, that traditionally was eaten in the early morning (similarly to kalla-pacha, soup made from sheep's heads and feet). As already mentioned, Ba'urchi-Baghdadi[v.] (1521) still gives a total of nine gipa recipes (Karnama, p. 166-172).

*** my notes ***

[1.] Mesentery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesentery) i'm not sure what American butchers call it, if they call it anything... anyone know?

[ii.] mesqal = mithqal

[iii.] sonbola = sumbul, which often = jatamansi = spikenard

[iv.] Boshaq-e at'ema (died 1426 or 1436) was a poet, author, and lexicographer who wrote works in the language of food, but whose subtext was social and political criticism. Boshaq is a contraction of Abu Ishaq, meaning Father of Isaac; standard naming form in the area, to call a married adult after the name of their first born son (a woman could be Umm Ishaq, Mother of Isaac). ''-e at'ema'' means ''of food''.

[v.] Mohammad 'Ali Ba'urchi-Baghdadi is the author of the oldest known Persian recipe collection, Kar-nameh (or Karnama) dar bab-e tabbakhi va san'at-e an ("Manual on cooking and its craft"), written for a Safavid prince and dated 1521. The Mongolian word "ba'urchi" means "cook" and he came from a Turkish-speaking family. His father was a trained chef in the service of the Aq-Qoyunlu Prince Budaq Mirza and taught his son his skill. Some scholars have speculated that Nurollah was a descendant of Ba'urchi Baghdadi, as several of Nurollah's ancestors had been involved in the earlier Safavid court kitchen.

(side note: Alot is the name of a town in India, not a word in English. If one means a large quantity, it is two words: a lot)
-- 
Urtatim [that's err-tah-TEEM]
the persona formerly known as Anahita

<the end>