Haggis - History and Etymology

History and Etymology

Haggis is popularly assumed to be of Scottish origin, but there is a lack of historical evidence that could conclusively attribute its origins to any one place. The first known written recipe for a dish of the name (as 'hagese'), made with offal and herbs, is in the verse cookbook Liber Cure Cocorum dating from around 1430 in Lancashire, North West England.

For hagese'.

Þe hert of schepe, þe nere þou take,

Þo bowel noght þou shalle forsake,

On þe turbilen made, and boyled wele,

Hacke alle togeder with gode persole,

The Scottish poem Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, which is dated before 1520 (the generally accepted date prior to the death of William Dunbar, one of the composers), refers to 'haggeis'.

Thy fowll front had, and he that Bartilmo flaid; The gallowis gaipis eftir thy graceles gruntill, As thow wald for ane haggeis, hungry gled.

— William Dunbar, Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy

An early printed recipe for haggis appears in 1615 in “The English Huswife” by Gervase Markham. It contains a section entitled “Skill in Oate meale”.

The use and vertues of these two severall kinds of Oate-meales in maintaining the Family, they are so many (according to the many customes of many Nations) that it is almost impossible to recken all;” and then proceeds to give a description of “oat-meale mixed with blood, and the Liver of either Sheepe, Calfe or Swine, maketh that pudding which is called the Haggas or Haggus, of whose goodnesse it is in vaine to boast, because there is hardly to be found a man that doth not affect them

— Gervase Markham, The English Huswife

Food writer Alan Davidson suggests that the people of Ancient Romans were the first known to have made products of the haggis type. Even earlier, a kind of primitive haggis is referred to in Homer's Odyssey, in book 20, (towards the end of the eighth century BC) when Odysseus is compared to "a man before a great blazing fire turning swiftly this way and that a stomach full of fat and blood, very eager to have it roasted quickly." Haggis was "born of necessity, as a way to utilize the least expensive cuts of meat and the innards as well"

Clarissa Dickson Wright claims that it "came to Scotland in a longship even before Scotland was a single nation." Dickson-Wright further cites etymologist Walter William Skeat as further suggestion of possible Scandinavian origins: Skeat claimed that the hag– element of the word is derived from the Old Norse haggw or the Old Icelandic hoggva (höggva in modern Icelandic), meaning 'to hew' or strike with a sharp weapon, relating to the chopped-up contents of the dish. One theory claims that the name "haggis" is derived from Norman French. Norman French was more guttural than modern French so that the "ch" of "hachis", i.e. "chopped", was pronounced as the "ch" in "loch", giving "haggis". This conjecture, however, is discredited by the Oxford English Dictionary.

Dickson Wright suggests that haggis was invented as a way of cooking quick-spoiling offal near the site of a hunt, without the need to carry along an additional cooking vessel. The liver and kidneys could be grilled directly over a fire, but this treatment was unsuitable for the stomach, intestines, or lungs. Chopping up the lungs and stuffing the stomach with them and whatever fillers might have been on hand, then boiling the assembly — likely in a vessel made from the animal's hide — was one way to make sure these parts did not go to waste.