ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- Tom Kitchin is one of the best chefs in Scotland. Some very smart people say he is the best. He's been awarded a prestigious Michelin star for his eponymous Edinburgh restaurant The Kitchin, a place that combines his French training with Scottish ingredients.
Including haggis.
So, given my earlier experience with the haggis pizza, I wanted to see if he could offer a defense of the stuff.
Is haggis proof that Scotland has serious, unfixable food problems?
Or has the rest of the world got it all wrong?
I turn it over to Chef Kitchin.
"Haggis is made up of the offal of the lamb. All the nasty bits. But we get this reputation for haggis -- but you go to France, andouillette in France is made of the same thing. The ears and [testicles] and kidneys. The thing with haggis is, for generations, tourists come to Scotland and they go to a traditional Scottish event and there'll be a haggis course and the piper will pipe it in. Haggis, which is one of the most filling things you can have, and then there are mashed potatoes and mashed neeps and a wee whiskey and you can't move for a week.
"When I opened the restaurant four years ago, all my training had been heavily French. One of my chefs said to me, 'When you open your restaurant you have to try to combine the two cultures.' He said, 'What's your most traditional dish?' I said, 'Haggis.' He said, 'Why don't you try to do a variation of haggis in a modern way?' I started thinking … "
Kitchin took the traditional parts of a haggis meal -- the "neeps and tatties" -- and trimmed it down and made it gastronomically interesting. Pickled the turnip and made the potato crispy. A modern version of the Burns Night classic.
"I even decided to put a piece of foie gras on top," he says.
