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An irreverent hagiography of haggis
glendabyline

Be ye friend or foe, be warned: the haggis is coming, the haggis is coming!

For years the serving of haggis on Robbie Burns Day, or night, as they refer to it in Scotland, has caused me much fascination. Not that I’ve ever attended a Robbie Burns dinner, although this year on the 25th I shall, complete with the piping in of the haggis and the reading of Robbie Burns’s Address to a Haggis.

Mere mention of the word "haggis" is enough to prick up my ears ever since I learned as a kid that it had something to do with eating a stomach. Anything so weirdly and ironically self-referential had to be very cool.

Despite my inattentive Burnsness, I have poked about a haggis, although I’m not sure how authentic or "good" it was. My husband brought one home from the local butcher one Robbie Burns Day and we created our own little Burnsian celebration, which, except for the very lovely smoky Scotch whiskey, was likely not very authentic, especially given the two of us are mixed breeds of Polish, Latvian, Irish and English – this by way of cultural excuse.

Poor Robbie. We thank you in absentia for your tolerance of our well-meaning intentions but wildly inauthentic, untraditional results. As I recall, the haggis itself was quite terrible, but overall the fascination remains.

All of the above must also hold true for Todd Wong, also known as Toddish McWong, witty creator and larger-than-life host of the annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year dinner that the overworked adjective "fusion" was invented for.

This perfectly Canadian event has grown from the first Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year dinner Toddish hosted for his McFriends in his living room, to the spectacular multi-course, multi-cultural, multi-entertainment spectacle slated this year for Chinatown’s grand Floata Restaurant, the largest Chinese restaurant in the world. (On Sunday, Jan. 22 – just three days before Robbie Burns Day and a week before Chinese New Year – in case you’re interested.)

The whole Toddishness was born years ago when Todd, a fifth-generation Chinese-Canadian was desperately asked to help organize Robbie Burns Day celebrations at SFU, where he was a student at the time. The idea of a Chinese guy running around wearing a kilt in winter – as well as the Canadian multi-culturalism of it all – appealed to his quirkier self.

I’m not at all sure how venerable sons and daughters of Scotland would view all this, especially those in Scotland. Friends of mine returned recently from a grand tour of that fair land, and although for the most part people were oh so lovely and friendly, there was a certain pervasive properness and provincialism tucked into corners of even the more urbane centres.

As for much of the food, it sounded about as terrible as my foray into haggis: Plain and often terrible, except for breakfasts, which were particularly stupendous at one bed and breakfast on Islay off the coast, home to eight distilleries including Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Bruichladdie.

I guess they figure you need a good start to make it through all the whisky and cold sea winds lashing the hills there, for a typical brekkie included porridge with clotted cream; fruits fresh, stewed and dried; juice; coffee; huge scones (yellow from the free-range eggs); toast; three or four eggs; ham; sausage, tomatoes and mushrooms. For one person. If you ordered a "full" breakfast you’d also get "tatties" and a big mound of lovely haggis.

As for dinner, they encountered the all-time worst meal of their lives at the local posh hotel: tough old mutton and venison with blood sausage served alone in all their greyness, with a side of overcooked broccoli and cauliflower and undercooked chips, white and heavy with grease. It was all so very bad they burst out laughing, while at the next linen-clothed table a wide-eyed young couple kept cooing, ooh, isn’t it lovely; oh, ’tis, ’tis.

My friends brought me a fascinating little cookbook on traditional Scottish cooking, which includes an 1829 recipe for traditional haggis, and another for "easy" haggis. We’re assured that the "traditional" version is nicely spiced, capable of rivalling the best sausage dishes of any country. Better than a good Polish sausage? Italian? I don’t think so!

However, the author does admit to the difficulty and, quote, "stomach churning" effects of preparing the traditional dish. This includes boiling and scraping the sheep’s "pluck" (stomach) and piercing and draining the blood from the "lights" (lungs, heart and liver). Yep, not many folks up for that these days.

The recipe includes five onions, two cups of toasted oatmeal and a whole pound of suet. The author notes that this is a "highly seasoned" haggis to which salt, pepper, cayenne, juice of a lemon and beef gravy is added. You’ll be boiling it all stuffed into the stomach for a good half-day.

Now this is where you must put seasoning in Scottish cooking in context. Thelma Barer-Stein in her comprehensive book You Eat What You Are notes that the Scottish spice shelf must be one of the shortest in the world: salt and pepper.

Onions are the main sources of zest in local cooking. And so you’d also need a couple for the "easy-make" haggis, along with a half pound of sheep’s liver, a quarter pound of suet and equal amount toasted oatmeal and that good old salt and pepper. Toss the sheep’s pluck – this version is pressed into a glass casserole dish, covered with foil and boiled in a larger pot of water for a couple of hours. Presto – haggis suitable for even a Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year dinner.

While haggis is traditionally served with mashed potatoes and "neeps and nips" – mashed turnips and nips of Scotch whiskey – Toddish McWong and friends have come up with the first known haggis lettuce wraps, which just may be enough to cause Mr. Burns to draw his sword in a wee pique of outrage.

I’m sorry, dear Robbie, if we multi-cultural, multi-tasking, cross-referencing, irreverent Canucks aren’t giving your fair haggis the due respect it deserves. Perhaps we should take more serious note, especially in times of national emergency and/or terrorism, given my favourite verse from your esteemed address, where the hearty, sword-bearing haggis eaters send legs, arms and heads flying like the tops of thistles:

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,

The trembling earth resounds his tread,

Clap in his walie nieve a blade,

He'll make it whissle;

An' legs an' arms, an' heads will sned,

Like taps o' thrissle.

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who would like to remind everyone that Frommer’s named Glasgow one of the world’s 10 must-see destinations, the only European city to win the honour.