In Focus - Discover Scotland: Experience the Best of Scotland - page 629

Haggis
Scotland's national dish is often ridiculed because of its ingredients, which admittedly
don't sound promising - the finely chopped lungs, heart and liver of a sheep, mixed with
oatmeal and onion and stuffed into a sheep's stomach. However, it tastes surprisingly
good.
Haggis should be served with champit tatties and bashed neeps (mashed potatoes and
turnips), with a generous dollop of butter and a good sprinkling of black pepper.
Although it's eaten year-round, haggis is central to the celebrations of 25 January, in
honour of Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns. Scots worldwide unite on Burns Night
to revel in their Scottishness. A piper announces the arrival of the haggis and Burns' poem
'Address to a Haggis' is recited to this 'Great chieftan o' the puddin-race'. The bulging
haggis is then lanced with a dirk (dagger) to reveal the steaming offal within, 'warm,
reekin, rich'.
Vegetarians (and quite a few carnivores, no doubt) will be relieved to know that veggie
haggis is available in some restaurants.
Smoked Fish
Scotland is famous for its smoked salmon, but there are many other varieties of smoked
fish - plus smoked meats and cheeses - to enjoy. Smoking food to preserve it is an ancient
art that has recently undergone a revival, but this time it ' s more about flavour than pre-
servation.
There are two parts to the process- first the cure, which involves covering the fish in a
mixture of salt and molasses sugar, or soaking it in brine; and then the smoke, which can
be either cold smoking (at less than 34°C), which results in a raw product, or hot smoking
(at more than 60°C), which cooks it. Cold-smoked products include traditional smoked
salmon, kippers and Finnan haddies. Hot-smoked products include bradan rost ( ' flaky'
smoked salmon) and Arbroath smokies.
Arbroath smokies are haddock that have been gutted, beheaded and cleaned, then salted
and dried overnight, tied together at the tail in pairs, and hot-smoked over oak or beech
chippings for 45 to 90 minutes. Finnan haddies (named after the fishing village of Findon
in Aberdeenshire) are also haddock, but these are split down the middle like kippers, and
cold-smoked.