Well that’s the story my husband has always delighted in telling me, his English wife.
And that’s the myth he’s kept going with our three children.
I thought they realised he was joking, until this week. Uh oh, there were tears when the truth was revealed.
The eldest was incensed that we’d ‘lied’ to her all these years and then sad that ‘haggi’ could not be actually be found in the wild hills of Dumfriesshire (I think she was hoping that we’d get one to keep the rabbit company . . . )
Then she was disgusted when she found out the actual ingredients – especially at the mention of a sheep’s stomach – and pushed it around her plate after that, despite having eaten it the past few years.
Before moving north to Scotland in 2000 I’d never eaten, or fancied, a haggis. My bosses here jumped at the chance of sending me to my first Burns supper, but I jibbed out by eating steak pie that night.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I actually tried haggis . . . and to my surprise, quite like it – as long as I don’t think about what I’m eating!
But it’s still quite a novelty back home in Yorkshire and guests to ours are always keen to sample it. It also comes in handy for last minute presents and I recently gifted some to a Belgian friend, who was intrigued at the idea.
And I have to admit that I maybe wasn’t quite as truthful as I could have been when she asked about the animal it comes from . . . Old habits clearly die hard!
