Fraser - "Gie Her a Haggis"

Fraser’s connections between haggis and the Scottish culture as well as the connections between haggis and the legends that derive from it, is something that I have really never put too much thought into. To me haggis was just some Scottish dish you only served for special events. Now I realize haggis is to a Scotsman as lobster is to a Cape Bretoner, both dishes holding the same connotations towards their respective cultures. Haggis began as a dish that the ‘poor’ ate, and became a staple of the Scottish diet.

Somewhere along the line the dish haggis shifted from a staple food of the Scottish cuisine and morphed into an icon of popular culture. Robert Burns’s poem, To a Haggis, in my opinion plays a substantial role in the commercialization of the haggis. His poem instilled a pride in something that was considered beneath most standards yet was consumed by many. Burns poem brought a new light to the dish and led to its high cultural impact. Though I doubt he ever thought that haggis would have ever been introduced to popular culture the way it is now.

This mass-production and commercialization of haggis has changed how Scottish people see them as well as how people see the Scottish culture. Haggis has taken on a life of its own, and has literally become a living-breathing thing. One legend of the dish turned it into an actual animal that you could find on the hillside to club it. Though it’s become more of a farce to embarrass tourists, it has also been able to disguise haggis as something far less disgusting than it really is. Masking just how barbaric this dish is by describing it has some cute little creature people can picture without having their stomachs churn. Though haggis is still seen and used as a ‘performance’ food, the high commercialization of this now pop-culture icon has hindered the authenticity of what it used to represent.