P. G. Wodehouse

I Explode the Haggis

Well, boys, to-night's the night. St. Andrew's Day has come once again,
and all over the world, from London to the remotest British colony,
Scotsmen will soon be seated about dinner tables - waiting. They will
have gathered together to do honour to their patron saint, but it will
not be of him that they will be thinking at the moment. Their knives
and forks clutched in their hands, their mouths watering, their eyes
wolfish, they will be watching the door through which are about to
enter, in the following order, bagpiper, the bearers of Atholl brose,
and ... the Haggis.

Incredible as it may seem, they will be looking forward to eating the
beastly stuff. Yet do not think that I blame the honest fellows. I am
broadminded. The fact that I, personally, have a stomach which shies
like a startled horse and turns three handsprings at the mere thought of
haggis, does not lead me to sneer at their simple enthusiasm. What I
say to myself is that there must always be Dangerous Trades, that it
takes all sorts to do the world's work, and that if these devoted men
are willing to eat haggis, it ill becomes us to raise our eyebrows. A
hearty, "Well, best of luck," seems to me a more proper attitude.

It is never of any use getting worked up about other people's food. You
may not be able to understand why a cannibal chef, with all the
advantages of an education at Balliol, should like to tuck into the
fried missionary, but he does. The thing simply has to be accepted,
just as we accept the fact that Americans enjoy Chicago potted-meat and
the Frenchmen bouillabaisse. In bouillabaisse you are likely to find
almost anything, from a nautical gentleman's sea-boots to a small china
mug engraved with the legend "Un cadeau (a present) de (from) Deauville
(Deauville)", while Chicago potted-meat.... Well, we have all read
Upton Sinclair's _The Jungle_, and are familiar with the poignant
little story of the emotional packer named Young who once, when his
nerves were unstrung, put his wife Josephine into chopping machine and
canned her and labelled her "Tongue."

Nevertheless, Frenchmen do go for this bouillabaisse in a big way, and
so do Americans for potted-meat. It is the same with Scotsmen and
haggis. They like it. It is no good trying any appeals to reason. I
tell you they like it.

The fact that I am not a haggis addict is probably due to my having read
Shakespeare. It is the same with many Englishmen. There is no doubt
that Shakespeare has rather put us off the stuff. We come across that
bit in Macbeth in our formative years and it establishes a complex.

You remember the passage to which I refer? Macbeth happens upon the
three witches while they are preparing the evening meal. They are
dropping things into the cauldron and chanting "Eye of newt and toe of
frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog," and so on, and he immediately
recognises the recipe. "How now, you secret, black and midnight
haggis," he cries shuddering.

This has caused misunderstandings and has done an injustice to haggis.
Grim as it is, it is not as bad as that - or should not be. What the
dish really consists of - or should consist of - is the more intimate
parts of a sheep chopped up fine and blended with salt, pepper, nutmeg,
onions, oatmeal, and beef suet. But it seems to me that there is a
grave danger of the cook going all whimsey and deciding not to stop
there. When you reflect that the haggis is served up with a sort of
mackintosh round it, concealing its contents, you will readily see that
the temptation to play a practical joke on the boys must be almost
irresistible.

Scotsmen have their merry moods, like all of us, and the thought must
occasionally cross the cook's mind that it would be no end of a lark to
shove in a lot of newts and frogs and bats and dogs and then stand in
the doorway watching the poor simps wade into them.

Nor could the imposture be easily detected. That Atholl brose, to which
I have referred above as the junior partner of haggis, is a beverage
composed of equal parts of whisky, cream, and honey. After a glass or
two of this, you simply don't notice anything, not even if you are at
the table or under it.

I must confess that if I were invited to a St. Andrew's night, I would
insist on taking Sir Bernard Spilsbury with me, and turning my plate
over to him before I touched a mouthful.

My caution might cast a damper on the party. Unpleasant looks might be
directed at me. I would not care. "Just analyse this, Bernard," I
would say, quietly, but firmly. And only when he had blown the All
Clear would I consent to join the revels.

Haggis has another quality which I dislike. I asked a Scottish friend
how you started in on it - what was the first move, as it were - and a
dreamy, soulful look came into his face.

"You give it a big cut with your knife," he said, "and it smiles at
you." I deprecate this. Heaven knows I am no snob, but there are
social distinctions. A decent humility is what we expect in our food,
not heartiness and familiarity. A haggis should know its place like a
chop. Who ever saw a simpering chop?

An odd thing - ironical, you might say - in connection with haggis is
that it is not Scottish. In an old cook book, published 1653, it is
specifically mentioned as an English dish called haggas or haggus, while
France claims it as her mince (hachis) going about under an alias. It
would be rather amusing if it turned out that Burns was really a couple
of Irish boys named Pat and Mike."