January 27, 2026
Pass the neeps, hold the receipts
A History of Haggis
Scots vs Sassenachs: Who really invented haggis, and who’s gatekeeping Burns Night
TLDR: A deep dive says haggis has murky roots—with early English references and a 2009 claim stirring the pot—while commenters turned it into Burns Night reminders, meta-cheers, and foodie love. The real debate: national pride vs shared heritage, served with jokes and a side of cultural identity.
Haggis history just crashed into internet culture wars, and the comments are the main course. The article lays out the mystery—Romans? Vikings? The French?—then drops the bomb: a 2009 claim by food historian Catherine Brown that early English cookbooks had haggis-like recipes. Cue Scotland vs England banter and the immortal line from a scowling Edinburgh maker—“Did Shakespeare ever write a poem about haggis?”—which readers gleefully treated like a meme.
The top community energy? Calendar chaos. One user deadpanned, “Probably better Jan 25th for Robbie Burns?”—a gentle nudge that if you’re going to argue about haggis, at least do it on Burns Night. Another chimed in with pure meta-joy—“The type of content I come to HackerNews for”—as if blessing this beefy, offal-fueled detour from tech talk. And then a Canadian entered the chat with foodie diplomacy, praising haggis as “actually so delicious” (with a typo—“peeves”—that the crowd adopted like a garnish).
Underneath the jokes, a real tug-of-war brewed: earliest English mentions vs Scotland’s cultural claim, with word-nerds weighing Old Norse “to chop” against the French “hacher.” But the vibe stayed playful. Think Nessie-level mystery, fought with links, lore, and a side of neeps. If origin stories are murky, the community verdict is simple: haggis belongs to whoever’s plating it tonight. Check the Burns Night reminder here: link.
Key Points
- •The article outlines multiple theories for the origin of haggis—Roman, Viking/Scandinavian, French, or native to the British Isles—without reaching a definitive conclusion.
- •In 2009, food historian Catherine Brown cited a 1615 cookbook to argue haggis was English, provoking controversy in Scotland.
- •Roman-era practices of preserving offal by chopping, salting, stuffing into stomach or caul fat, and boiling mirror core haggis techniques.
- •Etymological arguments suggest roots in Old Norse/Old Icelandic (“to chop”) and a possible French link via “hacher,” supported by historical Franco-Scottish ties.
- •Earliest documented references appear in England: The Forme of Cury (c.1390), a Middle English ‘haggis’ recipe c.1430s using sheep offal and dairy, and ‘hagas’ in the Promptorium parvulorum (c.1440).