Chasing the haggis – Burns Night and a haggis shortage
Burns Night is a peculiarly Scottish tradition to celebrate the life and works of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns. Held on the 25th January, the date of his birthday, the event takes the form of a formal dinner accompanied by recitations of the poet’s verse and sometimes ends in a ceilidh with Scottish dancing. Central to the evening is the Burns supper, a meal of haggis, tatties and neeps, and taken with a wee dram of whisky.
However, this year the centrepiece and main ingredient of the Burns supper, the haggis, is a scarce commodity and certain to be missing from the table of many a celebratory meal. The reason for this shortage is due to new European Union regulations passed in Brussels. Scottish farmers are no longer being allowed to breed them in captivity for the sole purpose of providing food for the table. In other words haggis husbandry has been outlawed in order to preserve non domesticated stocks.
To conform to the new rules this plucky little beastie, which is not officially designated an endangered species, can only be caught and killed in the wild. It therefore has to be hunted and this is proving rather more difficult than at first envisaged with the old traditional skills of haggis hunting having to be quickly re-learnt and re-mastered.
The haggis lives in remote areas of the Scottish Highlands where its natural habitat is the rocky and scree lined slopes of the mountains. It is only found above 1000 feet living in small colonies in burrows lined with heather. Setting traps has proved ineffective as the wily creatures are able to free themselves, or are released by their fellow haggis. Block the entrance to the burrow and they will merely make another, often tunnelling through the rock.
The only sure way of catching these creatures is to chase them. Haggises are lopsided, born with shorter front and rear legs on their right side enabling them to run around the mountain tops, which they do in a clockwise direction. Therefore when chased anti clockwise and confronted the animals tend to fall over and roll down the slopes where they can be scooped up in large nets.
Unfortunately, following several bad winters in a row and the recent severe cold and snowy weather in Scotland the ghillies, runners and netters have been unable to take to the mountains and catch the creatures in sufficient numbers. Therefore this coming year many a table on the twenty-fifth is likely to be bereft of the traditional haggis, their place taken and filled with a vegetarian haggis substitute.
Enjoy your Burns Night. Happy feasting, and I end with this traditional verse.
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.
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