Current location: Edinburgh, Scotland

No one had ever actually dared me to eat haggis while here in Scotland, but given the way certain members of my family have dared me to eat strange things before (such as the time I wound up putting barbecue sauce on my pecan pie at the behest of my stepfather), I was fully expecting it to happen. Haggis, after all, is a bit like black pudding in that it is one of the more disgusting things that Americans can think of to eat; and yet, the Scottish eat it all the time (I hear that there are even plans to start serving McHaggis burgers at McDonald’s soon — but don’t quote me on that). For your edification, here is a recipe for haggis:

I’m not sure what it is that revolts most people about haggis; to me, it certainly sounds less disgusting than black pudding. But I recall a scene from the film So I Married an Axe Murderer with Mike Myers and Nancy Travis, in which the main character approaches the woman butcher in San Francisco and orders a haggis. The butcher wraps it for him, charges him and says, "Do you actually like haggis?"

Mike Myers grimaces and says, "No, I think it’s revolting in every possible way. In fact, I think that all Scottish food was invented on a dare."

Everyone I know thinks that the very concept of haggis is disgusting. My mother thinks the notion is revolting. My stepfather refuses to consider the concept. And even Jennifer, who, she says, ate "wiggly things with eyeballs" when she was on a business trip in Singapore last year, refuses to ever consider eating haggis.

So given all that, and given the fact that I’ve been known to eat things with tentacles (not tentacles that are still wriggling, granted, but tentacles nonetheless), I felt that my honor was somehow at stake and that I needed to eat some haggis.

So last night I went to the receptionist and asked, "Is there a place nearby where I can get some good haggis?"

The receptionist, with a straight look on her face, said, "Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?"

"What?" I said wittily.

"Good haggis. Do you seriously believe that there is such a thing?"

"Well," I said, a bit chagrined, "how about some edible haggis, then?"

"That’s still an oxymoron," the receptionist said as she dutifully dug out her dining guide to Edinburgh anyway.

"Are you sure you’re Scottish?" I asked her. "I thought you guys loved the stuff."

She grimaced and shook her head. "Not really. I think we just eat it out of national pride. But the Auld Reekie restaurant next to the internet café is supposed to have decent haggis. Why don’t you try there?"

I thanked her kindly, told her that I appreciated her forthrightness, and headed out.

The Auld Reekie restaurant is a very small place that barely counts as a restaurant; it’s more like a tiny shack huddled up against an alley wall that accidentally started serving food one day and then kept going, having forgotten that it was supposed to be a huddled shack barely adequate to keep human beings safe in. I’d passed it a few times on the way to this internet café and figured it was just a pub. I was surprised to learn that it was a restaurant as well.

So I went in. Like most of the pub/restaurants I’ve been in in Scotland and Ireland, it was smokey, with signs advertising local brews on the walls, and the song "It’s Raining Men" playing in the background (I now believe that there is a law in the United Kingdom and Ireland which requires that this song be played on every radio station and in every pub at least once per hour). I looked at the bartender and asked, "Are you still serving food?"

"Yeh," he said. "Just come up to the bar when you’re ready to order."

"Well, I’m ready," I said. "I’d like some haggis."

He scowled. "You’re American, aren’t you?" he said.

"My accent gave me away, eh?" I asked.

"Nah," he replied. "It’s just that the only people who order haggis here are Americans on holiday. I’ve never known a local to touch the stuff."

I chuckled. "I’d still like to try it," I said. "There’s family honor at stake."

"All right, then. Have a seat over there and the cook will bring it out to you when it’s ready."

I thanked him, ordered a pint of beer, sat down, and took out my notebook to start writing. Before long the cook had shown up and put a plate of food in front of me.

On the plate was a dollop of mashed potatoes. That much I recognized. There was also a dollop of something that was orange and lumpy and that tasted a bit like carrots when I tasted it — carrots which had lost most of their flavor and which had been mixed with something that was kind of stringy. I asked the bartender what it was. "Tatties," he replied, which did not enlighten me at all.

There was also on the plate something like looked like someone had stuffed a sausage skin with a bunch of grey hamburger with white lumps in it, then sliced it open. This, I presumed, was the haggis.

Gingerly I took a forkful of the haggis and put it in my mouth and chewed.

Jennifer will be appalled to learn that I liked it.

I couldn’t see what was so appalling about the haggis; it tasted like sausage, really, a bit spicy, and a bit like hamburger. The contents may have been appalling in concept but the food itself was hardly worth the fuss that people usually raise over it.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that there are some things that people just like to fuss about, especially with regards to food.

So now I’ve eaten black pudding, white pudding, tons of potatoes, and haggis. I’ll be in England starting Saturday, and I fully intend to try kidney pie and kippers while I’m there. I’m sure I’ve appalled Jennifer and possibly my parents and my sister by saying that; but, dammit, my honor is at stake!