How to handle a haggis, and other Scottish specialities you have to try

There is an old Gaelic saying that perfectly sums up the Scottish attitude to food. "S mairg a ni tarcuis air biadh" roughly translates as "he who has contempt for food is a fool", and this motto is worth remembering.

Like many countries with a rugged terrain and a history of settlement and invasion, Scotland learned over time to harvest food from its natural surroundings, playing to the country's strengths by raiding nature's pantry.

This means that in many cases, Scottish culinary culture can be traced back thousands of years to the crops and creatures that thrived in and around its many lochs, rivers, mountains and moorlands – often resulting in dishes that are not for the faint hearted.

As early as 7,000BC, European hunter-gatherers were settling on Scotland's fair shores and oats and barley were some of the first crops to be farmed. These staples are to this day the main ingredients in Scotland's biggest and most famous dishes – whisky, porridge, oatcakes and haggis.

So if you're staying in a Glasgow hostel and want to take the opportunity to get a taste of Scotland, what are the delicacies you just have to try?


Haggis

The obvious dish to kick things off, haggis is considered by most to be Scotland's national dish. The celebrated Scottish poet Robert 'Rabbie' Burns made it a national symbol with his 1787 poem Address to a Haggis.

Anyone who hasn't tried it but knows what it is probably already has a fairly strong opinion about haggis, but if you can leave preconceptions to one side and give it a go, it really is worth sampling.

The savoury delicacy is reminiscent of black pudding and is made from sheep's pluck – the heart, liver and lungs – all of which are minced and mixed with other ingredients including oatmeal, onion, suet, spices and other seasonings.

Traditionally, haggis was encased in a sheep's stomach before being poached for a few hours, but nowadays most of it is made with the same casing used for sausages.

If you're staying in a hostel in Glasgow and heading out for a Scottish breakfast, you're sure to find haggis on the menu at most cafes and its slightly sweet and nutty flavour goes really well with a runny fried egg and crunchy toast.

Often, it is served as the essential component of the favourite dish 'haggis, neeps and tatties' – neeps being boiled and mashed turnips and tatties mashed potatoes. This is the celebratory meal eaten on the poet's birthday, so every January 25th haggis is eaten across Scotland and beyond for Burns Night.


Irn-Bru

If haggis is the Scottish national dish, Irn-Bru is the national drink (if you exclude whisky from the list, naturally).

The bright orange soft drink was first created in 1901 to water the steel workers of Glasgow who were drinking too much beer and needed an alternative option, which is where the 'iron' comes from.

Drinks maker AG Barr was drafted in by the William Beardmore and Company Steel Works to come up with a solution, and its answer was the drink now known as Irn-Bru.

Originally known as Strachan's Brew, in 1946 a legal issue meant it had to drop the word 'brew' from its name and Barr's chairman came up with idea of rebranding it Irn-Bru.

The huge success of the native drink means that Scotland is virtually the only country in the world where Coca-Cola is not the most popular drink on the market, and across the UK as a whole it is the third most popular fizzy beverage.


Deep-fried Mars bar

Ok, so the deep-fried Mars bar may not be a traditional dish with centuries of history, but it has a certain status that warrants its inclusion on this list.

Glasgow is one of the few places where you will find fish and chip owners willing to drop a chocolate bar into their deep-fat fryers, so it really is worth checking them out, just so you can see the look on your friends' faces when you tell them.

The DFMB has become something of a novelty item in the Scottish culinary landscape, but its notoriety comes from an interesting place.

It is said that a chip shop owner in Aberdeen invented the unique delicacy as a joke for some local children, but the local newspaper quickly picked up on the story and ran an article on it. This rapidly escalated, and before long national newspapers were writing about it.

Pretty soon, a tale of Chinese Whispers saw a rather negative story about unhealthy Scottish children being fed DFMBs by their local chip shops become a global phenomenon, but this simply reinforced the popularity of the idea and cemented the previously unheard of chip shop delicacy as a permanent fixture on the menus of the nation's chippies.

A word of warning: let it cool down before biting in. Deep-fried molten caramel can do your mouth serious long-term damage!

Arbroath smokies

The Arbroath smokie is a specially smoked haddock that hails from Auchmithie, a tiny fishing village near Arbroath on the east coast of Scotland.

It is quite unlike anything else and, if you get the chance to try one while in Glasgow, you shouldn't pass up the opportunity. The smokie is one of the only Scottish dishes to be given Protected Geographical Status by the EU in recognition of its heritage.

Traditionally smoked by the village's fishwives, Arbroath smokies are made by gutting and salting haddock before smoking them in barrels covered in hessian to prevent the smoke escaping.

The effect is a rich, pungent and golden brown product that has a deliciously dry texture.

Legend has it that a fish store in Auchmithie caught fire one night and locals discovered that the haddock salting in barrels had acquired a delicious smoked taste, but the more likely truth is that the technique for making smokies was brought over from Scandinavia with much of the village descended from Scandinavian settlers.

But why is it called the Arbroath smokie when it was made in Auchmithie, you ask? Well, in the 19th century, the village's fishing industry was on its knees and residents were relocated three miles down the road in Arbroath - where the practice continued.

Chicken Tikka Masala

While it is widely accepted that Chicken Tikka Masala - the staple of Indian restaurants in the UK - was invented in Britain, the precise location of its creation is still a spicy issue.

Glasgow holds perhaps the strongest claim to the throne, and in 2009 the Labour MP for Glasgow Central, Mohammad Sarwar, called on the EU to give the curry the same Protected Designation of Origin status that is reserved for the likes of Champagne, Cheddar cheese and Parma ham.

It is claimed that Ali Ahmed Aslam, the chef and owner at the Shish Mahal restaurant on Park Road in the city's west end, invented the dish in the 1970s to appease a customer who said that the chicken was too dry.

In the end, the bid to make Glasgow the official home of the Chicken Tikka Masala came to nothing, but the city is still famous for its Indian cuisine and visiting one of its many curry houses should be high on your agenda when staying at hostels in Glasgow.

In the last decade, Glasgow has won the Curry Capital of Britain title four times, last picking up the gong in 2010, but losing out to Bradford in 2011. In the 2010 competition, the city was represented by Balbir's, Mister Singh's India, Mother India Cafe and KoolBa.

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