Nicola Sturgeon in America and the haggis ban

First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, as part of her American visit, appeared on the US hit The Daily Show last night, to much acclaim.

Nicola Sturgeon with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. In UK, see it here.

One of the biggest laughs was when host Jon Stewart summarised the political tensions between Scotland and the Westminster government only to ask "What is haggis - what is that?"

Sturgeon laughs after haggis question punchline.

Sturgeon replied

"Haggis is delicious. Have you tasted haggis? It is wonderful. You know, it's spicy, it's tasty, it's absolutely delicious and you get vegetarian haggis as well."

However, she didn't explain what haggis is or that the traditional Scottish haggis has been banned in the USA since 1971 (more of which later) and so I thought I'd take the opportunity to clarify. The easiest description is to call haggis a sausage.

From earliest times, we know that our ancestors were efficient butchers, using stone tools over 3 million years ago in East Africa to scrape flesh from bones and to crack them open to get at the marrow inside.

Bones with stone tool marks.

As we evolved better techniques, no part of the animal was wasted. Not even intestines. These were cleaned out and used as casings. When you don't have modern science and technology to produce plastics and other products, you are forced to use what nature provides. Meat was then chopped and mixed with other ingredients, such as bread and spices, and put into the cleaned intestines. These were then cooked or smoked in order to preserve them and voila! the sausage was born.

In fact, the word sausage ultimately derives from the Latin word salsus, meaning "salted," referring to the fact that sausage meat was also mixed with salt to better preserve it.

But cleaned intestines were not the only natural container available: the butchered animal's stomach was also a suitable bag for holding sausage meat. However, being of much larger diameter, these stomach sausages were called puddings.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention and our ancient forebears would have been forced by necessity to use all parts of the animal. When there were no supermarkets, no refrigerators, no tinned foods to rely on, it was plain common sense that when an animal was killed for consumption, all of it that could be eaten was eaten.

Organ meats, or offal, such as the heart, the liver and lungs were all consumed. But our ancestors must have found them not as tasty as the animal's flesh and invented the idea of mixing them with other ingredients to turn them into something delicious.

Their origin goes back a long way. The first author of literature in Europe, the ancient Greek Homer, mentions one in a scene in the Odyssey, which is thought to be around 3,000 years old. He describes a man busily roasting a "stomach full of fat and blood" over an open fire, which sounds like an early version of black pudding.

Human resourcefulness - triggered by hunger - is nothing new. Haggis is one of these ancient puddings, or stomach sausages, that has survived into the modern era.

A traditional haggis in a sheep's stomach, big enough for a group feast.

Although haggis is now closely associated with Scotland, it was once consumed all over the United Kingdom with the earliest references to haggis being from 15th Century England. The traditional recipe is to first butcher a sheep. Then take its heart, liver and lungs and mince (i.e. finely chop) them together with onion, oatmeal, suet (i.e. animal fat) and spices then stuff into the sheep's stomach. Black pepper is the dominant spice used. Then tie the stomach closed and boil for a few hours until cooked.

Modern haggis is a little different. Synthetic casings are used instead of stomachs and you'll usually find pork or pork fat amongst the ingredients. They are generally pre-cooked, requiring you to simply re-heat them. However, given the haggis is like a little cannonball, the traditional method of boiling in a pan of water can take up to two hours. (You just place the whole haggis in the pot, a bit like boiling an egg.) It's much easier to cut the haggis in half and put it in the microwave for a few minutes.

A modern haggis in a synthetic casing.

For a traditional Burns Supper - held on the 25th Jan each year to celebrate Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland - you want to keep the haggis whole while cooking it. Then you can bring it to the dinner table, recite the Burns poem Address to a Haggis (that link also includes the English translation) and ceremonially stab the haggis at the appropriate line and watch the filling ooze out.

Haggis, neeps (turnip) and tatties (potatoes).

How does it taste? Imagine taking mince and mixing it with oats and black pepper. That's how it tastes. A sort of slightly dry, crumbly mince that is dense and tastes rich with fat and pepper. If you're ever feeling hungry and want some "stodge," i.e. food that definitely fills your stomach, then haggis, along with mashed potato and mashed turnip, is by far the best choice.

For those who prefer a vegetarian option, you can buy what is essentially a modified version of a nut roast but with lots of oatmeal and pepper to give it the haggis feel and taste.

Sadly, the US banned the traditional Scottish haggis way back in 1971 and the ban is still in place. The ban is not on haggis as such but on using sheep lungs as a food source for humans - without sheep lungs, a haggis just isn't haggis.

However, it's not just the lungs of sheep that are banned. The law on the Disposition of Lungs states:

(a) Livestock lungs shall not be saved for use as human food.

It also states that lungs contaminated with disease or chemicals or biological residue must be marked as condemned and disposed of; otherwise, lungs can be used in pet food or for pharmaceutical purposes (which means for education and research purposes).

Thus imports into America of lung-containing cuisine from Scotland and other countries around the world is also banned. Eat Me Daily describes some of these foods and an unsuccessful attempt at buying lungs in America.

Scotland and the UK has tried on numerous occasions to get the "haggis ban" lifted but to no avail. Most recently, Ian Duncan - a Scottish MEP (Member of the European Parliament) - has invited Tony Gardner, America’s ambassador to the European Parliament, to attend the next Scottish MEPs’ Burns supper in Brussels so that he can "feast upon the haggis" and, if he enjoys it, help overturn the ban.

The 17th New York Tartan Day Parade. Image from The American-Scottish Foundation.

Given that the rest of the world has been enjoying lung-based cuisine for millennia, it is hoped that Nicola Sturgeon's praise of the haggis on The Daily Show will bring this "great chieftain o the pudding race" (to quote Burns) back to the dining tables of all those Americans of Scottish descent. Indeed, in 2005 America declared 6 April National Tartan Day, a day on which "the contributions of Scottish Americans" should be celebrated.

Just not with the traditional sheep's lung-containing haggis.

If the First Minister of Scotland can eat it, why not US citizens?

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