[Sca-cooks] haggis

Stefan li Rous StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Fri Jan 1 21:13:03 PST 2010


Antonia di Benedetto Calvo declared:

<<< It's not that I don't think you can make haggis with other  
ingredients.
It's just that I *like* the old-fashioned kind made with sheep's pluck,
and it drives me nuts that the authorities feel the need to save us from
something that people have been eating for milennia.  I also think lungs
+ the right oats are what make a really nice texture. >>>

Well, not all period recipes for haggis contain *sheep* organs and  
some period recipes for haggis don't contain organ meats at all. I  
thought some were vegetarian, but I'm still looking through the file  
for them.

Here is one that uses porpoise (ie: dolphin) rather than sheep.

"40.  Pudding of porpoise.   Take the Blood of him, & the grease of him
self, & Oatmeal, & Salt, & Pepper, & Ginger, & mix these together  
well, &
then put this in the Gut of the porpoise, & then let it seethe gently, &
not hard, a good while; & then take him up, & broil him a little, & then
serve f[orth].

 >Is this the mammal? Although it seems good I won't knowlingly eat  
mammilian
 >dolphin or porpous. Sorry Ras, I'm too much of a liberal to eat  
animals
 >I consider intelligent.

Yes, it's the mammal.

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu"

And here is one good reason that the FDA and other similar groups may  
not allow lung tissue to be used:

"Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 08:04:58 -0700
From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net>
Subject: Re: Haggis and lamb lungs was Re: SC - More lamb

I'm sure that its not that the FDA "doesnt consider the lung fit for  
human
consumption", but that they're afraid of the really rather nastie  
cooties
one can get specifically from sheeps lungs. (can you say liver flukes?).
These guys encyst in the lung and a cursory visual exam may or may not  
get
them. You CAN find lungs in the country, but it takes some digging. I  
think
there's a butcher here in Seattle who specializes in...ahem....special
bits? I could of sworn I saw the list on the wall include "lights"  
next to
the Rocky Mountains Oysters, sweet breads, etc. Another possibility is  
to
buy the sheep yourself, ie totally skip the FDA. I'd be very careful  
WHO I
bought it from though...if a single sheep coughed when I was there,  
and the
pasture wasnt bone dry I doubt I'd eat the lungs (the fluke has a water
born stage...the sheep get it from eating grasses grown in watery  
pasture.
Migrates to the lung. Normally it encysts there for a bit, then hatches,
and crawls up the esophagus (hence the cough), gets swallowed and out in
the feces, back to the water. Rather tidy! probably more info than you
wanted, sorry!)

Anyway, the point is, the FDA isn’t making some sort of value  
judgement, the
rule is there for a very good reason. You can probably get around it  
if you
want to, but be very careful!

- --Anne-Marie "

Both of these quotes are from the early days of this list and can be  
found in this file in the FOOD-MEATS section of the Florilegium.
haggis-msg       (106K)  1/29/08  Scottish haggis recipes. comments on  
haggis.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****




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