Newsnet Scotland

Caledonian Mercury: Scottish news, stories and intelligent analysis from Scotland's first truly online newspaper The Daily Mash A Taste of Scotland It was the readiness with which he spoke of them. It was the context. He knew that I had arrived in , for my first visit, just an hour earlier. He and I were all of 90 seconds into our conversation. “You have to eat haggis,” he said, not in the manner of someone making a recommendation but in the manner of someone issuing a dare. Haggis, as the Scottish-savvy know, is a mash of sheep organs: heart, liver, lungs. Part staple, part cliché, it persists, but why introduce it as the soul and glory of Scotland, especially to a first-time visitor who hadn’t flagged any particular culinary curiosity? I had nonetheless sketched out a stomach-centric itinerary, and I was counting on a lot more and a lot better than haggis. I was bound for the Highlands, mainly for the landscape. My friend Barbara and I plotted our route so that for each of three successive nights, we would stay in a town with a reputedly fine restaurant. This plotting was disconcertingly easy. She had our schedule exactly right.

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