If I chance to bake a cheesecake
Half the neighborhood appears
All concerned it looks like too much food for one
Every neighbor wants a nibble—
There’s no lack of volunteers—
And I go from too much cheesecake down to none
But this week I did some cooking—
And it really turned out well—
But it doesn’t meet the neighborhood’s demands
Cos I didn’t bake a cheesecake
And the neighborhood can tell
So I’m left with too much haggis on my hands
Now for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
I’ve got haggis on my plate—
I’ve got more than I can handle, you can see
But my cheesecake-eating neighbors
Are indifferent to my fate…
And nobody’s eating my leftover haggis but me
I wrote this while eating a plate of haggis and eggs for breakfast. It was delicious, but yeah, the problem with haggis (this was my first homemade haggis–not the “presentation haggis” in a stomach, but just a regular recipe) is that there really is no way to make a small batch. You boil up the liver, heart, and lungs, and it’s not like you can say to a sheep “could you maybe have a smaller liver?”. So I made a regular recipe, and it yielded enough for a large family of hungry Scots, and there were just me and Cuttleson home at the time. He won’t touch it, so I’ve had haggis quite a bit over the past few days.
The dogs, though, are eager volunteers; I think next cheesecake, I’ll let the dogs lick the plates, right in front of the neighbors.
Ah! Haggis is WONDERFUL! …But you have to be careful of the jumping ones!
It took quite a lot of doing to find the ingredients here, as lungs are not inspected and thus not cleared for sale. On the plus side, once I found them, they were free, as it would be illegal to sell them to me! The benefits of knowing your local farmers!
(and that is a delightful link!)
Cuttlecook,
thank you. Mine’s, of course, not as delightful as your own work.
btw the recipe I mentioned is a real one, fifteenth century and…horror of horrors from England!!!!
For hagese.
Þe hert of schepe, þe nere þou take,
Þo bowel no3t þou shalle forsake,
On þe turbilen made, and boyled wele,
Hacke alle togeder with gode persole,
Isop, saveray, þou schalle take þen,
And suet of schepe take in, I ken,
With powder of peper and egges gode wonne,
And sethe hit wele and serve hit þenne,
Loke hit be saltyd for gode menne.
In wyntur tyme when erbs ben gode,
Take powder of hom I wot in dede,
As saveray, mynt and tyme, fulle gode,
Isope and sauge I wot by þe rode.
from Liber cure Cocorum
As I recall, the ingredients for haggis are the pluck of one sheep. Pluck being the contents of the thoracic cavity, including the stomach. Plus oatmeal and seasonings of course. I’ve never had it.
If I lived anywhere near you, I’d be more than happy to share in your haggis. :) Love it! I’ve never made it myself, and I’ve tried a few different places that made it, usually at a local renfair. My experience is that the made from scratch, non-commercial stuff (made at the renfair ‘village’, the really old fashioned way) was fantastic. The stuff made for commercial sale by the vendors….not so much.
Haggis and eggs sounds good. I am going to pick up some chorizo for breakfast this weekend.
I was in Scotland last year and went into a pub in search of lunch. I was thinking along the lines of a pie or toasted sangers. But, there on the menu was “Haggis Pakorahs”. They were great – nice spicy minced meats wrapped in pastry & dipped in sweet chili sauce. I guess Burns would be birling in his grave!
There’s a reason they call those parts “offal.”
Haggis is peasant food. The rich would eat the muscle meat and the offal would provide protein for the poor. My mother and mother-in-law came from central European peasant stock and cooked offal often. My wife and I were fed things like tongue and tripe from a very early age. We go to the local Hispanic grocery to get things like tongue (which I love) and pig’s feet which Stop & Shop doesn’t carry.
Just finished yet another plate of haggis and eggs. I prepared it because I hate the idea of wasting perfectly good food, but I really was not looking forward to it.
Oh. My.
It was delicious, yet again. Just wonderful. I swear, with the right PR campaign, this just might replace bacon.