haggis do you know??

Question

iam a proud scot and is always amused to what people think a haggis is would just like to see the diffrent answers as this is basicaly word wide here thank you xx

im up in livingstone my husband works in east kilbride grovey lol

yes i do know what is love the stuff personaly just find it interesting other peoples take on it and what it is someone once asked me when i lived near a farm if they kept haggis like they run around in a pen or something they didnt belive me when i told them what it was

Take the liver, lungs & heart of a sheep and boil them. Mince the meats and mix with chopped onions, toasted oatmeal, salt, pepper, and spices. Take one properly cleaned sheep's stomach. Stuff the cleaned stomach with the prepared contents. Sew up the stomach (leaving enough room for expansion to avoid a large messy explosion) and boil. Serve and eat. Lovely ! that was how they done it in the olden days now they The best meats are selected, (including tripe and offal) and prepared with finest oatmeal and spices...but served in a synthetic skin which is representative of the old technique. The quality manufacturers here in Scotland pride themselves in their guarded secret recipes and prepare the dish to exacting standards. It has a higher quality of content than your average "sausage"...and is extremely healthy...so please don't be put off! Nowadays, there are even vegetarian versions made from the finest Scottish produce.
copyed that from a site so i got it exact

Answer 1

A haggis is a small animal native to Scotland. Well when I say animal, actually it's a bird with vestigial wings - like the ostrich. Because the habitat of the haggis in exclusively mountainous, and because it is always found on the sides of Scottish mountains, it has evolved a rather strange gait. The poor thing has only three legs, and each leg is a different length - the result of this is that when hunting haggis, you must get them on to a flat plain - then they are very easy to catch - they can only run round in circles.
After catching your haggis, and dispatching it in time honoured fashion, it is cooked in boiling water for a period of time, then served with tatties and neeps (and before you ask, that's potatoes and turnips).
The haggis is considered a great delicacy in Scotland, and as many of your compatriots will tell you, it tastes great - many visitors from the US have been known to ask for second helpings of haggis!
The noise haggis make during the mating season gave rise to that other great Scottish invention, the bagpipes.
Many other countries have tried to establish breeding colonies of haggis, but to no avail - it's something about the air and water in Scotland, which once the haggis is removed from that environment, they just pine away.
A little known fact about the haggis is its aquatic ability - you would think that with three legs of differing lengths, the poor wee beastie wouldn't be very good at swimming, but as some of the Scottish hillsides have rather spectacular lakes on them, over the years, the haggis has learned to swim very well. When in water, it uses its vestigial wings to propel itself forward, and this it can do at a very reasonable speed.
Haggis are by nature very playful creatures, and when swimming, very often swim in a group - a bit like ducks - where the mother will swim ahead, and the youngsters follow in a line abreast.
The largest known recorded haggis (caught in 1893 by a crofter at the base of Ben Lomond), weighed 25 tons.
In the water, haggis have been known to reach speeds of up to 35 knots, and therfore coupled with their amazing agility in this environment, are extremely difficult to catch, however, if the hunter can predict where the haggis will land, a good tip is to wait in hiding on the shore, beacuse when they come out of the water, they will inevitably run round in circles to dry themselves off.
This process, especially with the larger haggis, gives rise to another phenomenon - circular indentations in the ground, and again, these have been mistaken by tourists as the landing sites of UFOs.
I hope this clears up some of the misconceptions about the Haggis, that rare and very beautiful beastie of the Scottish Highlands (and very tasty too).
I have included here as much factual material as possible, although there are many gaps in this subject, and some of the information has to be mere speculation.
No-one has as yet been able to ascertain the sex of captured Haggis, and partially because of this, scientists assume the haggis is hermophroditic.
This may also be a product of evolution, and does explain the logistic problems of bringing two haggis together - after all, sure footed though the beast is, if two were to mate on a Scottish hillside, it is a long fall down, and a slip at the wrong time may very well result in a reduction by two of the total haggis population.
What is known about Haggis breeding is that, several days prior to giving birth, the Haggis make a droning sound - very much like a beginner playing the bagpipes for the first time - giving rise to the speculation that the bagpipes were indeed invented in Scotland, simply to lure unsuspecting haggis into a trap. At the onset of this noise, all other wildlife for a five mile radius can be seen exiting the area at an extremely high rate of knots (wouldn't you if your neighbour had just started to play the bagpipes?). The second purpose of the noise seems to be to attract other Haggis to the scene, in order to lend help with the birth. This also gives rise to the assumption that Haggis are tone deaf.
Haggis normally give birth to two or more young Haggis, or "wee yins", as they are called in Scotland, and from birth, their eyes are open, and they are immediately able to run around in circles, just like their parent.
The wee yins are fiercely independant, and it is only a matter of weeks before they leave the parent, and go off foraging for food on their own, although it is perhaps a two or three year period before they are themselves mature enough to give birth.
Most Haggis hunters will leave the wee yins, due simply to their size, but when attacked by other predators, they are still able to emit the bagpipe like sound, which again has the effect of very quickly clearing the surrounding area of all predators, and attracting other Haggis to the scene. This results in a very low infant mortality rate, with most wee yins actually making it to adulthood.
The lifespan of the Haggis is again an unknown quantity, but from taggings done in the Victorian era, we know that some haggis live for well over 100 years.

Answer 2

I adore haggis!! I'm from the states,and moved here 13 years ago. When a friend invited me round for tea at hers,and then informed me we were having haggis as it was Burn's Night,my first thought was,''Bleeeeeuuuuurrrggghh!!" But being a polite person,I accepted the dish and tried it-and immediately fell in love with it! It really is delicious,and everybody should just put aside their pre-concieved ideas and at least have a taste!

Answer 3

I love Haggis!! I did loads of backpacking there a few years ago, and its now my second best country in the world....I always knew what was in a Haggis, and vowed to try one....I had one in a pub in Rowardennen near Loch Lommond, and was surprised and disappointed to have it come out looking like mince meat....but it tasted lovely.

I used to work in a pub and my next door neighbour was a Scotsman who brought some in from his Glaswegian butcher friend for Burns night celebrations I was doing in the pub.....it was the whole "rugby ball" looking kind, and it tasted even better than before....really fresh.

Answer 4

From one proud Scot to another, allow me to entertain everybody with this amusing poem about the fine, noble haggis:

The Haggis is a bonny bird
It flits from bough to bough
It builds its nest in the rubbharb tree
And whistles like a cow.

Who said Scottish people don't have a sense of humour!

Answer 5

It's a wee beestie that lives in the Highlands and is notoriously shy and difficult to hunt. There are two types, the Downhill Haggis and the Uphill Haggis which you can tell apart by the length of their legs.

As any fule kno.

Answer 6

They are small creatures which have legs shorter on one side than the other, thus making them run around the hills in circles. I heard that once, they were being serious. It makes the stomach of a sheep filled with meat seem boring in comparison.

Answer 7

Hey! Tell us what it is... Please. At least after you get some answers. Tell us all about it. At least we "Foodies" would like to know.

What I know of it, it's meat and spices mixed with oats and stuffed in some organ and then baked. I have never had the opportunity to try it but I love all the other Scottish foods I've had from the local Scottish Bakery. Meat pies, pastry, cookies, good oats, treacle...I'm located in Michigan, USA.

Answer 8

I half eaten it before and thot it was goode.

It was like meate and oatmele mixed togethrer and cooked in a sheep stomache except the one i had didnut have a real sheep stomache it was like the stuff that holds sausuge links togethrer it tasted kinda like sausuge.

scotland is awesume. i went to edinboro and saw the cassle.

I wuld eat haggis again

Answer 9

a haggis is a food that you eat on burns day its like a sheeps liver i think im scottish too east kilbride glasgow

Answer 10

Oooooooo ! Also a Scot here in Edinburgh, I know what I'm having for dinner tonight now, thanks. Canny beat a gid muckle helpin o haggis ,tatties n neeps.Gimmy that in place o a mingin wee sausage any day.