…gie her a haggis!

Burns Night (25 January) is fast approaching, so for those who plan to partake in the quaint tradition of celebrating a great poet by repeatedly stabbing this “Great Chieftain o’ the puddin’ race” at a Burns Supper – tomorrow is your last chance to grab a haggis.

If, like me, you always leave things to the last minute you might be struggling to find one (or more) now – especially if, like me, you’re trying to feed nine hungry people! They fly off the shelves at this time of year…or jump with their wee legs, more like.

Now, I’ve seen a few haggii in my time but never one on the scale of this beauty I found the other day – it’s hard to appreciate the size from this pic, but it’s a foot long and weighs 2.3kg. Good ol’ McSweens for upsizing. (In my opinion, after much haggis eating, they do make the best). Getting the food in three days before a dinner party was extreme forward planning for me and in my fit of uber-organisation I even remembered to get a vegetarian/vegan haggis for those guests of mine who are more evolved and don’t eat meat. I say that with sincerity, I’m not quite there yet. And, yes, the veggie haggii, by MacSweens again, do actually taste (almost) as good. And before you ask, no I don’t work for MacSweens or get any money for saying all these nice things about them, more’s the pity.

Today I discovered  a scrumptious looking vegan recipe but remain torn about whether it can really be called a haggis when the haggisy bits have all been removed….Still, if it gets more people into the spirit of things (single malt only!) then it can only be a guid ‘hing.

Would Rabbie “Look down wi sneerin’, scornfu’ view on sic a dinner?”  I doubt it.  He was fond of animals after all, especially wee mice. I think I’ll give it a try next year because, I don’t know about the taste, and I’m not yet ready to give up real haggis, but from a nutritional perspective it might just trump the real thing (and that is, really…really hard to admit).

The real McCoy MacSween……enough for 10 folk!  Braw.