Can you stomach a hearty haggis?

When you are confronted with a grey speckled mixture of liver, lungs, heart and oatmeal sitting on your plate alongside mashed tatties and neaps (mashed potato and swede), you may be forgiven if you find yourself wondering what all the fuss is about. In truth, haggis does not appear to be the most appetising of dishes and its aroma will never set our gastric juices running as they do when encountering grilled bacon or fried fish and chips with vinegar. But this humble dish, which is stuffed into a sheep’s stomach and then boiled for two or three hours, just has to be taken seriously.

What other dish is piped into the dining room as it is born aloft to the table, and what other dish has its own ode read out loud as a dagger is plunged into the taut sheep’s stomach that contains the filling, allowing a steaming hot mixture to cascade on to the plate? The ritual usually concludes with a toast in Scotch whisky and a toast to the lassies followed by dancing – and all in honour of a plebeian dish – the haggis, immortalised by Robert Burns.

The first Burns suppers were staged in memoriam at Ayrshire at the end of the 18th century, on July 21 by Robert Burns’ friends who wished to remember the anniversary of his death. They then changed the date to January 29 in 1802 until they discovered his date of birth was actually January 25. Since then his suppers have been held on January 25 by Burns Clubs, the Freemasons or St Andrews societies and in domestic dwellings throughout the world. The first Burns supper to take place outside Scotland was hosted by a few Glasgow students at Oxford University in 1810.

No other poet is feted so on his birthday. The fascinating thing about this event is its spontaneity. No central body writes the rules, sets the tone or organises the speakers, it just devel-oped and continues to develop so that many of us will find oursel-ves raising a glass to the great poet on January 25 even if we are not attending an official dinner. Most butchers now stock up with ready-made haggis towards the end of January, making the whole thing easy to arrange if you want to hold a Burns supper.

But if you want to make your own haggis don’t be put off. You will need a friendly family butcher who will supply you with the stomach bag of a sheep. This needs to be ordered in advance, as it is not a product your butcher will have readily available, although sausage casings are often used instead these days. This bag has to be washed well in cold water and turned inside out, scalded and then scraped clean with a knife. It is then soaked overnight in salted water.

Minced sheep’s heart, liver and lungs are boiled for about two hours. Suet, parboiled chopped onions and toasted pinhead oatmeal are then added to the mixture which is seasoned generously with salt and freshly-ground black pepper, also a pinch or two of powdered mace. After stirring well, this mix is sewn into the bag and boiled slowly for about three hours, keeping the haggis well covered with water as it cooks.

In The Oxford Companion to Food, (Oxford University Press) food writer, the late Alan Davidson, suggests that the ancient Romans, who were particularly fond of sausage-type dishes, were the first to have created haggis-type meals. He said it was a dish born of necessity as a way to utilise the least expensive cuts and innards. Celebrity cook Clarissa Dickson Wright claims haggis was invented as a way of cooking quick-spoiling offal near the site of a hunt, chopping up the lungs and stuffing the stomach with them, and whatever fillers might have been on hand, before boiling until cooked. Because the exact origins of the haggis are obscured in the mists of time, popular folklore has come up with some fascinating theories.

One is that the haggis is a small Scottish animal whose legs on one side are longer than those on the other side. This enables them to run around the steep hills of the Scottish Highlands without falling over. According to a poll of American visitors to Scotland a third of those asked assumed that the haggis is an animal. If you plan to celebrate Burns Night, remember that you can now purchase vegetarian haggis created from various pulses, nuts and vegetables, that tastes very good.

Take note, though, that whisky is the proper accompaniment rather than wine at a Burns supper and that the meal usually begins with a soup, cock-a-leekie. (See recipe opposite). A dessert course, with something like a Tipsy Laird (whisky trifle) or oat cakes and cheese may also be served at the supper.