Haggis

Haggis

Haggis displayed for sale
Type	Pudding
Associated national cuisine	Scotland
Main ingredients	Sheep's heart, liver and lungs, and stomach (or sausage casing); onion, oatmeal, suet, spices

Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with , traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now often in an artificial casing instead. According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: "Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour".

It is believed that food similar to haggis (though not so named), perishable offal quickly cooked inside an animal's stomach, all conveniently available after a hunt, was eaten from ancient times.

Although the name "hagws" or "hagese" was first used in England c. 1430, the dish came to be considered traditionally Scottish, even the national dish, as a result of Scots poet Robert Burns' poem Address to a Haggis of 1787. Haggis is traditionally served with "neeps and tatties", boiled and mashed separately, and a dram (a glass of Scotch whisky), especially as the main course of a Burns supper.

Haggis is popularly assumed to be of Scottish origin, but there is a lack of historical evidence that could conclusively attribute its origins to any one place. The first known written recipes for a dish of the name made with offal and herbs, are, as "hagese", in the verse cookbook Liber Cure Cocorum dating from around 1430 in Lancashire, North West England, and, as "hagws of a schepe" from an English cookbook also of c. 1430.