US poised to end 44-year ban on haggis

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Standard

US poised to end 44-year ban on haggis
MIchael Howie |
1 hour ago

America is set to lift an import ban on haggis 44 years after it was first introduced.

A Scottish government delegation led by environment minister Richard Lochhead has said it is confident it will overturn the ban during a visit to Washington this week. The block has been in place since 1971.

Haggis, sales of which are worth £15 million in the UK alone, was banned as Americans did not want to be exposed to sheep’s lung.

The delegation is set to propose a compromise - and suggest the key ingredient is left out.


Read more: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/us-poised-to-end-44year-ban-on-haggis-a3109871.html

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[Xipe Totec]

1. I have mixed feelings about this... nt

[GReedDiamond]

68. I do too, XT...

...I mix my haggis with scrambled calf brains.

(insert sarcasm emoji here)

[MowCowWhoHow III]

2. Errrr

[sulphurdunn]

3. Every culture has things

it would rather forget about and others it takes great pride in. Forget the Haggis. Import more whiskey!

[T_i_B]

4. Haggis is great!

I have to admit however that I prefer it sloshed in Henderson's Relish (or Worcestershire sauce if you really must) which I very much doubt will be met with much approval by our Scottish friends.

My only gripe about the ban being lifted is that recipe will have to be changed. And strictly speaking, if it doesn't have lights in then it's not proper haggis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-34759665
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lights_(offal)

[sulphurdunn]

6. Grits are great too,

so long as they taste like something else. People use everything from cheese to honey, but that doesn't make them fit for human consumption.

[FLPanhandle]

9. Whoa! I love grits

Not that mass produced northern version you are probably talking about, but the locally ground original southern style grits are amazing.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

18. Right! Just a touch of butter and salt - all anyone needs.

[freebrew]

54. Pepper...really!

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

57. Of course.

[PosterChild]

42. Had Haggis in Scotland - Yum, Good! (nt)

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. The Scots do not produce whiskey.

It's whisky.

Haggis is quite good, actually. And I'm not that keen on liver or kidneys.

[PaddyIrishman]

5. Scottish Cuisine

Is based on a dare.

Remember that....

[Art_from_Ark]

19. LOL!

I guess that explains why Scottish restaurants are as rare as hen's teeth.

[rocktivity]

39. I saw a cooking show from a restaurant in a Scottish castle

They put whisky in EVERYTHING from the appetizers to the desserts -- I got tipsy just watching it!


rocktivity

[Art_from_Ark]

60. That reminds me of a Monty Python sketch

(A restaurant interview with Mr. Badger, author of the theory that the Magna Carta was a piece of chewing gum on a bedspread in Dorset):

Waiter (Michael Palin): Would you like to order sir?

Interviewer: Yes, Mr Badger, what would you like to start with?

Badger: Er, I'll have a whisky to start with.

Waiter: For first course, sir?

Badger: Aye.

Waiter: And for main course, sir?

Badger: I'll have a whisky for main course and I'll follow that with a whisky for pudding.

Waiter: Yes sir, and what would you like with it, sir? A whisky?

Badger: No, a bottle of wine.

[longship]

7. Now if only we can get a ban imposed on lutefisk.

Then, the world would be improved. Horrible stuff!

And I am second generation Norwegian/Finnish. However, that just means I sadly speak from experience.

However, yup! Lutefisk is inedible as far as I can tell.


An entertaining post. R&K

[HassleCat]

29. Hey. Hey! HEY!!!

Watch it, bub! Any food processed with lye is not to be disrespected. Actually, I agree it's inedible when cooked the regular way. However, it's not bad when baked. And, as all Norskes realize, anything can be eaten when slathered with butter.

[longship]

31. Every time I have eaten lutefisk I have had a severe migraine.

Lutefisk is inedible. Plus, any fish that has the consistency of soft jello sucks.

Sorry, my Scandinavian friend.

Now pickled herring is an entirely different matter. Yummy in the tummy!

[HassleCat]

32. We agree on the herring

Wine sauce, sour cream, I don't care. Just bring me more.

[longship]

33. Skäl, my good friend.

[BooScout]

8. This is so very wrong for so many reasons.......

But mostly because it is just ICK!

[FLPanhandle]

10. If Americans can eat Chitlins, Corndogs, and Cheese Whiz, then we can stomach Haggis

[annabanana]

21. We can stomach stomach?

or whatever this is


great

[Sunlei]

36. Some cultures get used to eating offal bits, stuffed in a stomach. Ancient recipe there.

[T_i_B]

52. If you are going to kill an animal for meat....

...then I for one would want to use the whole of the animal, but just a few cuts. No point in being wasteful.

To be honest there's only tripe that I will actively try and avoid.

[PosterChild]

43. Don't use your head....

...use your stomach . .. it'll be aaricht.

[gregcrawford]

11. The ban on haggis was really unnecessary...

... if offered a choice, even a starving man would prefer an unwashed sweat sock. Even reading about haggis makes me want to gargle a gallon of Scope. BLEAAH!

[GoneOffShore]

12. Now I can make haggis pakora without using tinned haggis!!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/06/haggis_huevos/

[Maeve]

13. I can only quess there is a health concern involved

That "Americans did not want to be exposed to sheep's lung" line is insulting.
I have several Scots friends who attend an annual Burns dinner and the key moment is the serving of the haggis.

[Sunlei]

34. Because of madcow (a prion disease) concerns.

In 1971 it became illegal to import haggis into the US from the UK due to a ban on food containing sheep lung, which constitutes 10 to 15% of the traditional recipe. The situation was further complicated in 1989 when all UK beef and lamb was banned from importation to the US due to a BSE crisis.

[Maeve]

35. Thank you! I knew there had to be a medical reason

Had not got around to researching it, appreciate the explanation

[yallerdawg]

14. Legalizing marijuana.

I knew there would be consequences.

[TexasBushwhacker]

15. What's the issue with lungs?

I'm not a fan of organ meats, but why single out lungs unless there's something dangerous about eating them?

[jmowreader]

73. Animals sometimes aspirate bile while being slaughtered

Titles are never places for longwinded treatises, so...Animals aren't stupid. They can figure out they're about to get killed - especially when they're standing in the doorway watching it happen to the one right in front of them. They sometimes throw up and suck the bile into their lungs. Maybe the Scots shoot their sheep rather than run them through a slaughterhouse, which would keep them from having time for bile-sucking. Anyway, bile can't be eaten by humans and the government doesn't want anyone to chance it, so we banned lungs from food.

[tabasco]

16. I'd have to be starving to eat that shit.

Don't like liver either.

[KG]

17. Our long national nightmare is over...

[First Speaker]

20. Thread winner...!

[smirkymonkey]

38. Touche!

[Judi Lynn]

66. Hoooray! Wooohoooo! Glory be!

[center][/center]

[Attorney in Texas]

22. 25 January will be a feast to remember!

[Historic NY]

23. I recently had it here at a food & wine festival.....

thankfully the wine was close at hand.

[jpak]

24. Chieftan of the Pudding Race!!!1111

[packman]

26. Going to go to my local Haggis store

and get a pound or two.

I remember watching Anthony Bourdin eating haggis and telling the crew, who were laughing in the background, to turn off the cameras after one bite.

[HassleCat]

27. Some friends told me it's difficult to get in Scotland

Maybe it's a fad or something now, if it's a $20 million thing. (Did I do that math correctly?) This was ten years ago, but a couple of friends who are of Scots lineage went there, and they really, really wanted haggis. And they really, really couldn't find any. They said servers at restaurants gave them looks of disgust when they asked about it.

[PosterChild]

45. I had it in a pub in Glasgow . ..

.... hadn't no problem ordering it.

[T_i_B]

50. Well I'm in England and I can get hold of it!

Also, I had a trip to Liverpool the other week and it was very pleasing to see how many pubs there serve traditional scouse stew.

[Hepburn]

28. My Scottie can hardly wait..

...and she can have my share!

[3catwoman3]

30. We spent 10 days in Edinburgh...

...in 2005 at the Marriott Dalmahoy. A sumptuous breakfast was included, and I had haggis every day. I like scrapple, so I guess there should have been no reason for me not to like haggis.

[hedgehog]

55. I think scrapple is what people made when theycould get

corn meal but not oatmeal. I like both haggis and scrapple.

[dickthegrouch]

37. They're so damned hard to catch though

I can understand the Scots banning exports so they can keep them to themselves.
I'd rather have faggots and peas. But I do like a wee bit 'o haggis occasionally.

[Walk away]

40. No!!!!!!!!

[underpants]

41. First Cuba now this

[olddots]

44. I smoked some haggis in the sixties

but I didn't inhale .

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

46. this news is awesome! ....

Now, here in Detroit I can serve haggis at Lions tailgate parties and puke something other than the game results!

Just kidding.....about puking haggis, not the Lions. They deserve all my stomach contents.

[jmowreader]

67. BTW what does it cost to get into a Lions game?

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

69. Your sanity...

I really don't know ticket prices. My son gets season tics every year. Think he pay around a grand for a couple seats. I go with him and tailgate at Eastern Market. He goes into the game and the rest of us watch on a seventy inch tv that one of the guys has hooked up in a party trailer. Us outside people just party all day long, then let them drive us home. Good times. Especially when it's snowing, the snowball fights are legendary.

[jmowreader]

72. Strangely enough, I just checked...

You can get "Roar Zone" tickets for $75 - this gets you upper level end zone seats. (The same ticket is $60 at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, with the added bonuses that you can eat Ivar's and suck down Northwest craft beer, and you probably won't have to watch the Detroit Lions.)

[IDemo]

70. 'Haggis' - the sound effect induced by someone ingesting haggis

I'm of Scottish descent, but no thank you to this.

[MisterP]

47. this will surely bring down the mighty haggis cartels

[valerief]

48. They have haggis, we have mad cow beef. I'd rather have the haggis, I think. nt

[FrodosPet]

62. They have mad cow as well

I vote for none of the above

[valerief]

63. Ha! Yes, you're right! nt

[NuclearDem]

49. Get your haggis! Right here!

Chopped heart and lungs boiled in a wee sheep's stomach! Tastes as good as it sounds!

[merrily]

51. I had no idea haggis was a controlled substance. I, for one, think it should remain so.

Kidding. I thought it was stomach, not a lung, anyway. I don't know jack about haggis--and I am okay with that.

[mikeysnot]

53. there can be only one.

[LanternWaste]

56. We're a nation that rationalizes Hamburger Helper as a main course and Cheese Whiz as a delicacy...

We're a nation that rationalizes Hamburger Helper as a main course and Cheese Whiz as a delicacy... on those points alone, we're not in any real position to criticize Scottish cuisine (except of course, to allow the weak-minded to feel better about other nations).

[YOHABLO]

58. The Scots don't all sit around the table eating haggis once a week. It's a rare occasion if any.

It much like people eating chitlins in the U.S.

[grntuscarora]

59. It couldn't be worse than scrapple,

could it??

I'll give haggis a try.

[Enrique]

61. haggis doesn't have widespread appeal

it's like Sean Connery's sister's daughter.

[Beacool]

64. That's one import we can do without.

[jmowreader]

65. Oh my...

"Here's some haggis. Have a good breakfast."

(nom, nom, nom...)

'This tastes like ass!'

"Impossible! There's no ass in it!"

[IDemo]

71. 'Turn it around!'

Oops, wrong joke..

[KamaAina]

74. Hoot mon!

[brooklynite]

75. Pass the neeps and tatties!

...and the scotch. DEFINITELY the scotch.