Poor Man's Feast

Edinburgh based haggis makes Macsween's have a burgeoning reputation as the best in the business. Tom Brude-Gardyne discovers just what makesa Macsween's haggis so different from the rest...

Anyone seeking to break into Macsween’s, the only custombuilt haggis factory in the world, first has to wrestle with Robbie Burns. By day this life-size papier mâché model of the great poet appears friendly enough, standing by the entrance offering visitors a haggis in his outstretched hand, but by night …

“A lot of people think he’s a security guard,” says Jo Macsween, who runs the marketing side of the family firm. “Frannie comes in first thing in the morning and still gets a heart attack, so if it works for my staff, it’s bound to work for others.”

The presence of Scotland’s national bard is entirely appropriate of course, for without him there would be no haggis. Perhaps that’s not entirely true, but it’s hard to think of one without the other. The dish had been around for centuries, and was probably drifting towards obscurity if not extinction when Burns came along and subjected it to the full glare of his florid imagination.

“Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin’-race!” bellow the opening lines of his immortal address To a Haggis and with that the poor creature never looked back. Every January 25th, in every corner of the globe where Scots are gathered, she is wheeled out to the scurl of the pipes and the drinking of many drams to celebrate the poet’s birthday. He may not have known it at the time, but Burns created the national dish, and for that the Macsweens will be forever grateful.

But why address a haggis in the first place? It seem.....

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By Tom Bruce-Gardyne

Section : Made in Scotland

Page number : 70