You'll have had your tea

Myths persist for three reasons.

Firstly, repetition.  Repeat something often enough and it will gain, if not credibility, then at least popularity or even notoriety.  The great thing about the repetition of a myth is that it can be done by people who have not even heard the original source material, but wish to confirm something in a manner that indicates they are privy to information others are not.  For instance 'I hear the Pope has six toes on each foot'.  'Ooooh, yes, I heard that too.' and so on.

Secondly, the myth is something we want to believe.  Alien life visiting our planet and fumbling with yokels' trouser parts is a far more interesting belief to hold than, say, we are alone in the universe and even if alien life did visit, it wouldn't try to touch us up because we are such a repellant species.

Thirdly, it's credible.  There could be an undiscovered creature living in the Himalayas.  There could be a dinosaur swimming in Loch Ness.  Haggis is a Highland creature.

The fabled 'Pyramid of haggis'.  

If there's a better way to display tinned haggis, it's yet to be invented.

Let's be quite clear, haggis is not an animal found in the Highlands of Scotland, it's a mixture of offal and meat, like a big spicy sausage.  If the haggis were an animal, I would imagine that it would not come in a vegetarian option.  I may not be a qualified vet, but I'm not aware of any animals that are actually vegetables.

Haggis does however, taste exactly like the meat of an animal that lives a very rough life in the Highlands of Scotland, subsisting on a diet of heather, rain, granite and the occasional lost hiker.  If Haggis were an animal, then hunting season would be early January (of course they're hunted in the wild, whoever heard of intensive haggis farming?), to adorn the plates of diners on Burns Night.

Robert Burns's verse on the side of the Scotish Parliament building.  

If you're verse adorns the side of a Parliament building, you are a national treasure...

or possibly a little sod with a spray can who styles himself a 'graffiti artist'.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, arguably Scotland's greatest poet.  Arguably the United Kingdom's greatest poet if you consider having the poet's verses reproduced on tea towels as a measure of fame.  Without doubt the worlds greatest poet if you measure fame by having a dinner named after you - take that Shakespeare, Thomas and Yeats.

It's Burns Night tonight.  All over the country people will be dusting off their best tartan biscuit tin, downloading a verse or two from the Internet, calling potatoes 'tatties' and using the celebration of the birth of a gret poet to drink a lot of scotch.

There is, apparently, a right way to partake of a Burns supper.  This involves, depending on your means, a piper, or some recorded pipe music (bag, not pan).  It also involves many, many toasts and an address to the haggis which is, apparently, the great chieftain of the pudding race (coming as a surprise to all those who thought that was rolly polly and custard).

This example of Scottish cuisine can be enjoyed any night of the year.

The problem is when you enjoy it every night of the year.

It's also the one day a year when Scottish cuisine is enjoyed.  The rest of the year Scottish cuisine is merely feared and respected in equal measure.  The world over, people eat traditional Scottish fare, neeps, tatties and of course haggis.  Well, let's be honest, people eat what they think is traditional Scottish fare.  If people were tucking into traditional Scottish fare then, in my experience, dinner tables would largely feature a double portion of chips liberally soaked with saltandsauce, washed down with Irn Brew.

It's easy to knock Scottish cooking.  And it's fun too.
And unfair.  I bloody love Scottish cooking and I think it's wrong that it gets ridiculed.  True, Scottish people do like hearty food, leaning towards the meaty, and well cooked.  Stews, mince and flat sausage all pander to the 'if it's brown, wolf it down' sensibilities of the Scottish palate but it's unfair to knock exotic items like the deep fried mars bar - if Heston had come up with that, it would be hailed as a work of genius and possibly even 'witty'.
Certainly, I'll be tucking into my haggis and probably partaking of a dram or two.  Cliche?  Possibly, but also an opportunity to toast the great man who wrote 'my love is like a red red rose' and 'Tam O'Shanter', poetry which, like Scottish cuisine, deserves celebration.