And where does the haggis come from? Well, there are one or two sources for buying imported Scottish haggi in Madrid, but they're on the pricey side and Piethagoras always likes to make things as complicated as possible. So he's making his own.

[-- Vegetarians and squeamish people, don't read this bit! --]

The main ingredient of a traditional haggis is a sheep's 'pluck', which is a cutesy, inoffensive name for the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep. And the whole thing is packed into the stomach of a sheep. Yeah, yukk. Even if Piethagoras knew where to get a pair of sheep's lungs from, he would be throwing up at the sight of them, never mind mincing and cooking them. And the stomach. Bleurgh. So he's not doing that.

A related story. Whilst researching haggis recipes, Piethagoras came across a blog post from a lady in them thar Untied States of Amiracle. She was determined to make a traditional haggis and went to her butcher to order the bits. The butcher said 'it's for your dog, right?' 'No,' she replied, 'I don't have a dog.' 'Lady, if you want me to get this for you, you have to say it's for your dog.' When the order was delivered to her house, the box had big labels on it that said 'not for human consumption.'

[-- Okay, you can look now --]

Our recipe for haggis contains the following: chopped lamb, chopped liver, oats, onion, stock, whiskey, secret herbs and spices. It's boiled for hours and hours in a cheesecloth bag. So, nothing particularly yukky there - in fact it's all classified as food by health authorities everywhere (except maybe the whiskey).

The big boil-up is tomorrow.