22 March 2005

Merchant Mariners on the Haggis

You unfortunate creatures who've not met him before should know that Mr. Colin Glencannon is Chief Engineer of Ye Goode Shippe Inchcliffe Castle, Mr. MacQuayle is the Second Resistant Engineer and Mr. Mongomery -- obviously of English Descent -- is the Chief Mate. Their doing were chronicled by one Mr Guy Gilpatrick in the old, 'scuse me, auld Saturday Evening Post.

The Making of the Haggis - Edward Quaintance "The Hunting of the Haggis" Glencannon Afloat, in the Second Glencannon Omnibus by Guy Gilpatrick, Dodd, Meade & Company, New York, 1944, pp 215 - 221

Glencannon: "...the haggis is the fruit o' a romonce o' lang, lang ago, involving the humble pudding and the lordly sossage. It is the culinary triumph o' Scotland, which is to say, o' the entire world! ...oatmeal, onions, and pepper, is that orl there is to it? ...weel, proctically, though in enumerating the ingredients, ye left oot the five-gallon bucket. But once ye've got those four succulent essentials ready at hond, yere haggis is as good as made. All that remains to do, then, is slaughter an ox, ...

MacQuayle: "Not an ox--a sheep! Ye commence by chopping his head off. My Auntie Meg in Killiecrankie always did the job with an auld claymore ... till the rheumatism cromped her style. After that, she'd sneak up on him through the heather and bosh him ower the head with a rock. While the sheep would be laying there groggy, she'd sit hersel' astroddle o' him with a cross-cut saw and ...

Glencannon: "Pairdon, me, ox! Ye hong up yere ox and ye let his bluid drain into the five-gallon bucket. His stoomach, his liver, his heart and all his heavier machinery ye put carefully to one side where the collies canna snotch them. ... Ye take all the parts ye dinna plon to use for glue except the stoomach. Ye hash them up. Ye mix them with yere oatmeal, yere onions and yere pepper. Then ye throw the whole business into the five-gallon bucket, soshing it aroond with a broom hondle or a guid, stoot walking stick until it gives off a scupping sound, lik' when ye wade through the ooze in the botton o' a dry dock. At this point, if ye care to, ye can add a sprig o' pursely and a few leaves o' rosemary, gently crushed betwixt the finger and the thumb, although discriminating haggis eaters o' the auld school maintain that this detrocts from the soobtile and deelicate flavor o' the whole.

Montgomery: "Ugh! Me, I'd add some disinfectant and 'eave the 'ole mess overboard! ... Yus, gorblyme, and I'd 'eave the bucket arfter it!

Glencannon: "...pairmit me to obsairve that I think ye're vurra uncouth. ... (then) ye cook it to a turn, for that, incidentally, ye must use a fire. But feerst ye pick up the ox's stoomach in yere left hond, grosping it firmly aroond the waistline, as in the auld-fashioned Viennese waltz. Then, with yere richt, ye stoof it full o' the stoof ye fish oot o' the five-gallon bucket... Do ye check wi' me, Muster MacQuayle?

MacQuayle: "Dom, no, by no means! Ye dinna stoof the stoofing into an ox's stoomach at all; ye stoof it into a sheep's liver!

Montgomery: "I don't think either of you two Scotch cannibals 'ave got the foggiest notion of 'ow to make yer 'orrid 'aggis..."

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