Posted on 08/02/2009 2:02:52 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Before being hijacked by Scottish nationalists
Catherine Brown has discovered references to the dish in a recipe book dated 1615, The English Hus-wife by Gervase Markham.
This was published at least 171 years before Robert Burns penned his poem Address to a Haggis, which made the delicacy famous.
The first mention she could find of Scottish haggis was in 1747, indicating that the dish originated south of the Border and was later copied from English books.
Ms Brown, whose findings feature in a TV documentary broadcast this week, said: "It was originally an English dish. In 1615, Gervase Markham says that it is very popular among all people in England.
"By the middle of the 18th century another English cookery writer, Hannah Glasse, has a recipe that she calls Scotch haggis, the haggis that we know today."
But reference to haggis in a 1771 novel by Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, showed it was considered a Scottish dish by the late 18th century.
The English hero of the story says: "I am not yet Scotchman enough to relish their singed sheep's head and haggis."
Haggis, which is made from a mixture of oatmeal, liver, heart and lungs, is not the first Scottish icon said to originate from England.
In his last book before his death, Hugh Trevor-Roper, the eminent historian, wrote that the kilt's inventor was a Quaker from Lancashire.
Ms Brown believes that Scottish nationalists may have appropriated haggis as a symbol of their nationhood in the decades following the Act of Union with England in 1707.
"It seems to be that there's an identity thing there. We'd lost our monarchy, we'd lost our parliament and we gained our haggis," she said.
"There was a latching onto everything that was distinctive about Scotland,
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
This is bound to result in war.
As far as I am concerned it should be who to blame.
dubious honor?
Invented by an Englishman but known as a Scottish dish? So what was it originally stuffed with - barley? Englishmen are not known for the eating of oats, as Doctor Johnson immortal definition makes clear.
Whatever it was stuffed with, once the other Englishmen tasted it, and pronounced it “offal.” They drove the originator out of England and into Scotland, feeling the meal was only fit for wild men and beasts. And I say that as a proud Scots’ descendant.
Maybe the English tricked the Scottish into eating it as their national food.
Dr. Johnson may have been unfamiliar with Geordies.
Tam O’ Shanter ping!
"The Naked Chef" Jamie Oliver ought to be flogged, drawn and quartered for making a snide remark about American culinary prowess...
"We put the veg into the roasting pay, give it some extwa virgin olive oil...
Pop it in the ov, and it'w be weally weally tasty!
It was invented by somebody who was pretty freakin’ hungry, is all I’m sayin’...
Human beings have been cooking minced meats and grains in animal stomachs since the paleolithic. American native people did the same. And didn’t even wear tartans.
Imagine fighting over the honor of inventing haggis ...
If you eat sausage...then you’re just a wee bit doon the road from the stomach...
I'm guessing the Scotts are happy about such a revelation and the Britts will try to discredit such a finding!
Good point. A trip to the store could be pretty grueling then. Use what you got, and like it, was the rule.
But it sucked so bad the English gave it to the Scots?
God sake I’m not surprised. Two sides of the same culinary coin. Fetal duck eggs anyone?
Someone has to take the blame.
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