Who were the first to eat haggis?

Answer 1

It isn't possible to say who first ate the famous traditional Scottish dish, haggis.

We can't even say the people of Scotland first ate it under the name haggis; the word dates back to the 1600s in English, and was commonly used in English long before it became restricted mainly to Scottish use.

It is thought the word might have come from the Old French term, agace, meaning 'magpie', referring to the magpie's liking for collecting a variety of objects to decorate its nest, but this seems less likely than the other theory, which is that the word originated with the Old English verb, haggen, meaning '(to) chop'.

While haggis is today known as a Scottish dish, the type of food preparation involved is practiced worldwide and dates back to prehistory.

Cutting parts of animals and flavorings such as vegetables, herbs and spices into tiny pieces, stuffing them firmly into an animal's stomach (or similar sac), tying it up and boiling or steaming until cooked through is an ancient way of using up all of an animal, especially the parts left over after the easier-to-eat parts - muscle tissue (steaks, and so on) - have been eaten.

This method of preparation not only converts otherwise less-attractive bits of animals into a more palatable and digestible form, it is also a means of preserving the food, which is basically a very large sausage.

Sausages, haggis, and all their predecessors vary from region to region and age to age, depending on availability of ingredients, and, of course, their names are different everywhere.