On my last trip to Scotland in 2007, I had my first ever meal of haggis, which is often described as the national dish of Scotland. I waited until the very last meal of the very last day I was in country and had a good amount of beer (or liquid courage, if you prefer) to get myself psyched up for the occasion. It was actually really good. I remember it as meaty and salty and didn't even mind the turnips (or perhaps they were swedes) that came as the traditional accompaniment to the meal.
Why did I need some beer before tucking in to haggis, you might ask? Well, let's consider what haggis actually is. Traditionally, it's sheep offal (perhaps heart, liver and lungs and stuff like that) mixed with oatmeal, salt, spices, suet, maybe some onion and stock and then boiled in a casing until cooked. The casing is traditionally the stomach of the sheep but today, most folks probably use some kind of artificial casing. Sound yummy? THAT's why I needed a couple of beers before my first haggis.
By the way, I'm not sure the haggis I had in whatever bar I found in Glasgow 15 years ago was actually as offal-y as the dish historically is or was. Maybe that's why it tasted so good.
This year, I was determined to not make the same mistake I made in 2007. I was all in on the haggis and no liquid courage would be required, although beer is an excellent pairing with some offal and oats, if that's what you actually get on your plate when you order it in whatever establishment you happen to be in when you order.
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| Haggis nuggets and haggis pizza. The Mishnish, Isle of Mull. |
I was not just all in on haggis this year, by the way. I was all in on all Scottish food. Fish and chips. Full Scottish breakfasts (with black pudding and tattie scones). Tablet. Fresh seafood like scallops and shrimp and whelks (like eating rubber; never again!). Smoked fish. Afternoon tea. Tunnock's teacakes and caramel logs. Anything I could get my hands on to stuff into my mouth. But none of that (with one notable exception I'll discuss later) really merited writing about. Except haggis. So here you have a post about haggis. Mostly.
We arrived in Scotland on a Saturday afternoon and by the time I laid my head to rest on my pillow for the first night in country that night in Glasgow, I'd had my first haggis. I had my second tasting the very next night also in Glasgow. In addition to two meals of haggis in Glasgow, I ate the stuff in Edinburgh, Inverness and on the Isles of Mull and Islay. I ate it in traditional (meaning likely made from offal) form, in vegetarian form, in a sandwich, in spring rolls, on pizza, in a toastie (OK, so also technically a sandwich) and in nugget form. I covered haggis pretty well on this trip, I'm telling you.
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| Neeps, tatties, haggis. Ardnamurchan restaurant, Glasgow. |
Haggis traditionally comes served with neeps and tatties. For those of you who don't speak Scottish, that means with swede (or turnips, which I guess is shortened to neeps) and mashed potatoes (tatties). Indeed both the full on traditional (above) and the vegetarian version of the same thing (first picture) that we ate came served just that way with a boat or serving of whisky sauce on the side. We found the whisky sauce essential to full enjoyment of these meals of haggis. None of the rest of the forms of haggis we ordered were served with these three sides, although the haggis egg rolls I ate did come with both some kind of chili dipping sauce and chips and gravy.
I am suspecting most of the haggis we were served in our time in Scotland was not offal-based. Most of it had a sort of ground-meat-with-grain texture that belied what it should be and really didn't necessarily improve the flavor, although the mouthfeel of the meat was far more relatable than the really smooth pureed traditional haggis that likely had some animal parts in it that I don't really want to be informed of. I'd put the haggis we had in sandwiches and on the pizza and in nugget form into this meat/grain category, although of all these dishes, I'd put the haggis sandwich I had at the Islay Hotel on the Isle of Islay as head and shoulders above the rest of those other meals. I'd go back for that any day.
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| Haggis Sandwich. The Islay Hotel, Isle of Islay. |
The best plate of haggis we had? Honestly, it was the traditional haggis at the Ardnamurchan restaurant in Glasgow. I'm shocked to be writing this actually because the mouthfeel was cloyingly pasty as if there was some meat I don't usually eat pureed into the mix and the aftertaste was definitely a little metallic. But the overall taste was meaty and satisfying and the mashed potatoes were perfectly fluffy and well-seasoned. When eaten with the neeps and the whisky sauce (which was honestly just fantastic - we could have eaten a lot more of that), the bites of this dish felt homey and very Scottish which was just what we were looking for. I'm not sure I could have eaten an entire portion by myself (it was rich and we split the dish) but I would definitely go back and share this plate again.
The vegetarian haggis we were served the very next day was a reasonable facsimile to the eye, but the taste was nothing similar to the real deal at Ardnamurchan. I'm not sure quite what the point is. It's not good enough to be crave-able. Maybe people eat it to say they have had haggis without eating something legit?
If there were a close second to Arnamurchan's haggis (and it's really a distant second), it would be the haggis egg rolls I got from The Chippy by Spencer in Edinburgh. They were clearly not as smoothly pureed as the best haggis we had but the texture was different enough from the ground-meat-and-grain texture we had so much that it made this dish seem more legit. At least to my extremely uneducated haggis palate; I mean, after all, I've still only had this stuff eight times. I'd go back to The Chippy for these. They went well with the chili sauce too.
Considering we spent just 14 nights in Scotland on this trip, I'm pretty satisfied with seven haggis dishes in that time. I definitely got way more into this stuff than I have ever in all my previous at least three trips to Scotland. I could have had more, including haggis for breakfast, but I'm satisfied with my level of exploration here. At least I won't need to get liquored up to try this stuff ever again.
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| Haggis egg rolls, chips, gravy. The Chippie by Spencer, Edinburgh. |
The title of this post is Haggis Etc. And so of course, there's an etcetera to talk about. We really did have a lot of Scottish dishes on our wish list for this trip and really and truly, most of them weren't unique enough to spend any time really writing about. Except for the haggis and one other dish that is probably the most ordinary sounding dish of all, a mix of fruit, oats, honey and whipped cream called cranachan.
Maybe I left one or two details out of my description in the prior paragraph but honestly, there's not much to this cranachan dish. It's kind of like a parfait, with raspberry coulis layered with toasted oats, honey and whisky liqueur whipped cream and then topped with a single raspberry. And maybe it was where we had this dish (Ardnamurchan, again) but this dessert was mind-blowingly good. The sweetness of the coulis with the silky whiskey cream against the texture of the oats was just incredible. We had this dish once in our two weeks in Scotland and it was the best thing we ate. I mean, there is no competition. It's so simple that it seems like it should be easily replicated at home but I'm not convinced it's actually that simple. And we did look for it again. We struggled to find it, although an ability to eat in restaurants in Edinburgh due to contracting COVID certainly affected our options in Edinburgh.
If I ever am in Glasgow again, I'm eating every night at Ardnamurchan and I'm having cranachan for dessert every night.
That's my Scotland food report. Haggis and cranachan. Great stuff!
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| Cranachan. Ardnamurchan Restaurant, Glasgow. |
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