LONDON — Scots at home and abroad will be sitting down on Friday night for Burns Night suppers to commemorate their national poet with a feast of haggis.
Robert Burns’ “great chieftain o’ the puddin’-race,” a mix of sheep’s innards and oats tied up in a sheep’s stomach, is the centerpiece of the annual celebration of Scottishness.
It is a pleasure that will once again be denied to Scots-Americans this year, as the BBC’s John Kelly wrote this week in a report that blew a breeze through the heather of the haggis-loving community.
The genuine article has been outlawed in the United States for more than 40 years as a result of a ban on one of its key ingredients — sheep’s lung.
A 1989 health ban on all British offal extended the restriction to hearts and livers, also vital for a true Scottish haggis.
“For many expat Scots and Scots-Americans, the notion of Burns Supper without haggis is as unthinkable as Thanksgiving without turkey,” Mr. Kelly wrote in a report from Washington that revealed aficionados would have to make do with ersatz versions of the Scottish national dish or even — horror of horrors — vegetarian ones.
His report provoked some indignant comments on social media from haggis lovers who pointed out that their favorite sausage was probably a lot safer than the kind of weaponry freely available to U.S. consumers.
Others noted that haggis was no more esoteric than some of the extremes of American cuisine.
And some advised offal-adverse Americans to take a more “waste not, want not” attitude to their food.
As many as 30 million Americans, predominantly in the southeastern states and Texas, have some Scottish ancestry.
Many of their forebears arrived in the New World via settlements in Northern Ireland, an odyssey celebrated by one of their number, former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, in his 2004 book “Born Fighting.”
One of their imports, fried chicken, has thrived. But not so the humble haggis.
Scottish producers have attempted to fight back against the ban and two years ago the Scottish regional government invited U.S. health officials to come and try the real thing.
“Scotland’s produce is amongst the best in the world and I’ve asked U.S. Department of Agriculture officials to come here to see for themselves the high standards we have in animal health and processing,” Richard Lochhead, Scotland’s rural affairs minister, said.
U.S. authorities have resisted such blandishments. President George W. Bush passed up an opportunity to taste the delicacy at an international summit in Gleneagles in 2005. “Yes, I was briefed on haggis,” he commented unenthusiastically at the time.
Personally, I’m a fan. A culinary tip: if you manage to get your hands on a real haggis, cook slowly at a simmer and never allow to boil. Eat with a mash of neeps and tatties — swede (or rutabaga) and potato. And don’t forget the compulsory whiskey accompaniment — Scotch, of course.
