Yes, it is haggis time again. Last year around this time I gave you a bit of background history and some recipe and serving advice so have a little butchers here ….
This year has been a bit milder some we are hoping for a better supply from the highlands but it hasn’t always been that way ….
This once popular sport amongst the nobility and gentry of Britain and Europe reached its peak in the early 1920s with gentlemen converging on the stately homes of the North Yorkshire Moors from all around Europe during haggis hunting season. Back in those days, when large haggis herds roamed the Moors in abundance, a hunt would last for several days, with literally dozens of haggis being shot (or hagged in hunting parlance) in just one session.
A good days work
A typical haggis hunting session would consist of the beaters, or haggillies to give them their correct name, taking their haggis hounds, an all but forgotten breed of specialised hunting dog, onto the Moors and herding the haggis towards the carefully positioned haggis hides. In these hides the hunters would wait patiently until the traditional cry of ‘Hag Ho!’ went up from the chief hagilly, at which point they would take up their gun positions and attempt to hag as many of the small but elusive creatures as possible as they stampeded past.
A typical haggis hunting party
In the intervening years between then and now there have been several unconfirmed sightings of haggis around the Moors, but the sad truth is that the haggis were hunted out of existence on the Moors and are now confined to the Highlands of Scotland.
So we have to rely on haggis being rustled across the border …
Haggis smuggling (a reconstruction to protect the identity of the smugglers)
Following my posting last year about Burns Night especially the traditional address to the haggis you might want to take a butchers at this nostalgic clip
Charlie the butcher
Love this. I was baffled when we had a customer enquire if our haggis were wild or farmed this year. Amazing