When Scottish Americans and Scottish immigrants sit down Saturday night to celebrate the birthday of 18th-century poet Robert Burns, traditional haggis likely won’t be up to par.
Haggis, the savory Scottish dish of boiled sheep, oats and spices, can be a real Haggis, many argue, only if it includes one key ingredient: sheep’s lung, which is used in the filling. In the United States, which bans imports of sheep’s lung haggis, some Americans of Scottish heritage have turned to the black market to get their hands on the real thing.
Now Macsween, one of Scotland’s most popular haggis makers, has developed a recipe that would meet US import guidelines by replacing sheep’s lungs with lamb’s heart. It’s not the first tweak MacSween, which was founded in Edinburgh in 1953, has made to haggis. In a nod to modern tastes, the sheep stomach that has traditionally been used as a haggis casing has been swapped out for a beef casing, such as those used in some sausages.
“Do I think there’s something to be said for the textural difference the lung adds? Yes,” said Greg Brockman, a Brooklyn butcher who has been making his own version of haggis for years. “Do I think the average consumer is going to notice? Probably not. “
The new take on the treat is set to arrive in the United States by this time next year, in time to be the centerpiece of Burns Night celebrations.
Burns helped turn haggis, traditionally eaten by peasants, into Scotland’s national dish with lines like “Fair Fa’ your honest, Sonsie’s face / Great Chieftain O’ The Pudding-Race!” In his poem “Address to a haggis”, which is read as part of the celebrations.
While a mere mention of the delicacy can draw winces from Americans, James Macsween, chief executive of his family business, sees the potential far beyond Burns Night.
“A lot of people eat that on a week-by-week basis,” he said. “We’ve done all the hard work: we’ve ground it, we’ve mixed it, we’ve mixed it, we’ve put it together and we’ve made it into a very nutritious and tasty meat protein ingredient.”
Take the casing, mr. Macsween said and add the filling as a topping or ingredient to Haggis pizza, Haggis lasagna or Haggis poutine.
“You can make hundreds of menu suggestions,” he said. “It’s flexibility.”
Macsween sells around eight million pounds of haggis each year in Britain, where the recipe includes sheep’s lung. Its biggest customer is the grocery and department store chain Marks & Spencer. Mr. Macsween said the Haggis purchase is worth about 14 million pounds, or about $17.5 million.
Breaking into the American market was a challenge. Haggis was banned in the United States in the 1970s due to the ban on lung sales. In 1989, the United States banned lamb and beef imports from Britain after an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as Mad Cow disease.
Mr. Macsween said it had been trying to break into the North American market since 2015, when it began representing the Scottish and processed meat industries in talks with the Canadian and US governments to try to put Scottish Lamb and Beef Back on Menus. Atlantic.
The United States eased its restrictions on lamb and beef imports in 2022, but with the ban on lung sales, one thing was clear: if Macsween’s haggis was to be sold in America, it would have to replace lamb heart.
American haggis is “perfectly acceptable”, said Mr. Macsween. But now, he says, it’s time to “finally get real Scottish haggis in the United States.”
Macsween will use the same recipe for American-Pold Haggis as it does in Canada, now one of its biggest markets. This includes lamb heart and fat, oatmeal, white and black pepper, herbs, salt, onion and stock.
“We know it works,” said Mr. Macsween. “It’s a delicious product and it’s the most authentic haggis we can make within the law.”
Anne Robinson, the founder of Scottish Gourmet USA in Greensboro, NC, isn’t so sure. Her company is one of America’s largest suppliers of domestic haggis (made with ground lamb and beef liver, vegetables or vegetables), and she questioned whether Macsween could get around US regulations. Still, he welcomed the company to what he described as an “extremely niche market.”
Mr. Brockman, the Brooklyn butcher, lived in Scotland for four years and recalled having Macsween Haggis for Burns night celebrations with friends. Now he makes his own at Prospect Butcher Company, using sheep heart and liver. It usually sells around 20kg around Burns Night.
“Everybody fears it as this iconic weird food,” he said. “But it’s got a wonderful blend of hot spices, and there’s some of that iron in it from the heart and the liver. I don’t think it’s overdone at all. It’s just a nice mound of food, man. It’s not attractive in shape or color, but it’s got very good taste and smell very good.”
