US bans haggis as Scottish delicacy breaches health and safety laws

It is eaten on Burn’s night, and some think it’s delicious while others shiver at the thought of it. Haggis, the Scottish national dish, is banned in the US due to health and safety laws.

Why is haggis banned in the US?

It has been illegal to import haggis from the UK to the Us since 1971. This is because of a ban on food containing sheep lung in America, which makes up around 10 to 15 percent of the original haggis recipe.

The ban forbids all lungs from food due to the health issues raised by stomach acid and phlegm potentially entering the lungs during slaughter.

For this reason, haggis made in the US does not have lung in it, and the casing, famously made from sheep’s stomach in the UK, is artificial.

What is in haggis?

The traditional haggis recipe includes sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs, with onion, oatmeal, suet, salt, stock, and spices, all cooked and presented in the sheep’s stomach.

The flavour of haggis is said to be “savory” and “nutty” and it’s typically eaten with a side of boiled and mashed potatoes and Scotch whisky.

The meal is divisive, but famous US chef Anthony Bourdain was a huge fan of the dish.

He said: “Don’t let them tell you otherwise, that’s really one of life’s great pleasures. There is no more unfairly reviled food on Earth than the haggis.”

Crime novelist Ian Rankin and his famous character, Inspector John Rebus, were also fans.

Rankin wrote: “I’m pretty sure the first time I dined with AB in Edinburgh we had haggis in filo pastry with a jam-style – maybe blackcurrant – sauce. He was a big fan of haggis and of chip shops. Rebus will have enjoyed the occasional haggis supper from his local chip shop. He was definitely a fan, as am I.”

Haggis first appeared in cook books in 1430 under the name “hagese” in the cookbook Liber Cure Cocorum. It is famously depicted in the poem “Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy”, dated 1530.

It reads: “Thy fowll front had, and he that Bartilmo flaid; the gallowis gaipis eftir thy graceles gruntill, as thow wald for ane haggeis, hungry gled.”