[Urbane Guerrilla]

I've had haggis.

The sensation is more than a little difficult to describe. It's darkish, and moistish, very faintly liverish but mostly rather grainy like a pilaf. Somehow hearty, rather bland underneath the generous seasoning of black pepper.

Since it's essentially a sausage of sheep lungs, liver, and scraps, thoroughly cut with pinhead oatmeal, seasoned with the spices of the hills like wild thyme, and stewed with the sheep's stomach for a sausage casing, well, it's filling, for sure -- and more than a little darkly mysterious. It is a pretty fair way to make innards taste worth while, though.

The Scots of America tend to approach haggis mainly on Burns Night dinners, when they've already been tippling at the malt Scotch for a while, which tends to make their recollections of haggis even vaguer, and reduces them to mumbling trying to describe it to someone who was otherwise engaged on Burns Night.

In Scottish butcher shops, you'll see premade haggises in the display cases, looking just like the pic, all plump and stubby. About the only way to make 'em more ethnic would be tying tartan ribbons around each end.