Guts, Glory - and Haggis

Fraser MacGregor scoops out haggis from boiling water. [Photo/Agencies]

MacGregor, 46, hadn't been at the 1976 haggis competition himself, but he's been working at Cockburn since he was 16, eventually buying it from Jocky McCallum, the owner who came up with the winning haggis recipe. Haggis, Scotland's national dish, has been made and consumed in the country for centuries - long before the poet Robert Burns wrote an ode to it 1787. It's the ultimate peasant food - a dish that involved stuffing lungs and livers into a stomach casing ensured that no part of the animal went to waste. It has become such a source of national identity that in addition to the meat traders' competition for haggis making, there are others for eating and hurling the food.

A haggis fan himself, having had it for dinner two to three times a week since he was a "bairn", MacGregor prides himself in keeping the tradition alive.

And so, even though he's the boss now, MacGregor says he makes the shop's haggis every week. "Normally you start at the bottom and work your way up to the top," he said. "But no, I'm still doing the same job I was when I was 16."

The prized haggis recipe was handed over with the store, and the version made today is the one that won. Cockburn haggis is in such demand that MacGregor spends two mornings each week making a total of about 500 kg for clients all over Britain and beyond, to countries including Hungary and Germany.