Vegetarian Haggis for Burns Night? What would Robbie Burns Say?

Burns Night, & around the country people will be celebrating the great Scottish writer Robert Burns by eating haggis - a dish made of offal and cooked in a sheep's stomach.  This might turn the stomachs of most people but would make most vegetarians shudder. However, there is such a thing as a vegetarian haggis!  Strangely our vegetarian Great British Chefs,  blogger Monica Shaw found herself in the meat section of a supermarket & decided to give it a try.

Photography by Monica Shaw

“But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer, 

Gie her a Haggis!”

Burns Night is on 25^thJanuary and all over the UK (especially Scotland), people will gather for formal and informal celebrations of the life and work of Scottish poet Robert Burns. Such celebrations traditionally involve a supper of haggis, “neeps and tatties” and, of course, whisky.

This leaves vegetarians in a bit of a bind. One doesn’t need to eat meat to appreciate good Scottish poetry (and pretty much any excuse to eat and drink) but the very nature of haggis (minced meat and spices encased in an animal’s stomach) is the complete opposite of “vegetarian”. 

Fortunately, there’s vegetarian haggis! Yes, I was introduced to this concept recently when I stumbled upon MacSween’s Vegetarian Haggis at Waitrose nestled amongst the sausages and chorizo (why I was perusing that section is an open question).

I’m not usually one for pre-packaged foods, but for the sake of dear Mr Burns, I decided to give it a try. In place of meat, the veggie haggis contains mushrooms, legumes, beans, carrots, lots of nuts plus oats and vegetable margarine to hold it all together. The taste experience: a bit like mushroom barley soup in congealed log form.

I confess, the whole concept of haggis was a mystery to start with. As a vegetarian, I had no idea what to expect, or how to serve it. The flavour of MacSween’s Vegetable Haggis is nice and peppery, but it’s essentially a vegetable mush pile and it all becomes a bit same-y after a few bites.  And as a mush pile, it doesn’t seem like it would suit neeps and tatties (potato and swede mash). Mush pile next to a mush pile? No thanks.

I could see this haggis as a stuffing for peppers, or perhaps a filling for some veggie haggis samosas. Haggis ravioli? None of this feels quite right for Burns Night.

There’s always the option to skip the haggis and go straight for the whisky and poetry. That’s certainly vegetarian and has its own kind of appeal.

WWBD? What Would Burns Do? What would you do? Am I missing a trick with MacSween’s Vegetarian Haggis? Got a vegetarian haggis recipe that I can really groove on? Let me know on Great British Chefs Facebook Page!

Blog post for Great British Chefs by Monica Shaw

2 Comments

monicashaw

Thank you so much for your comment and I'm thrilled I was able to save you time and money. I'm totally with you - there's a beautiful simplicity about core, basic food (potato, swede, bread, WHISKEY). Haggis, with its amalgamation of "stuff", seems overly complicated - at least the veggie haggis, anyway. But I'm not one to give up on an idea, in fact, I liked some of the recipe ideas that MacSween had on their website (haggis-stuffed mushrooms, haggis-stuffed peppers, haggis-stuffed anything!). I'm going to try to make my own tonight using a recipe given by a trusted friend. Can the veggie haggis be saved? We shall see. =)

21th January 2012

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alikibags

Monica, you are a hero and you saved me some money on buying a veggie Haggis - THANK YOU !
So far I can not think of anything other than just having tatties and niepes, nicely flavoured, a good chunk of crusty bread to go with it and then blissfully on to the whisky and poetry.......x

19th January 2012

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