{"id":1367,"date":"2012-09-09T18:21:16","date_gmt":"2012-09-10T01:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveltattler.com\/?p=1367"},"modified":"2012-09-09T18:25:58","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T01:25:58","slug":"arcadia-bluffs-serves-up-own-iode-to-haggisi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/golf\/courses-and-travel\/1367\/arcadia-bluffs-serves-up-own-iode-to-haggisi","title":{"rendered":"ARCADIA BLUFFS SERVES UP ‘DELICIOUS’ ODE TO HAGGIS<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Piper Roddy MacNeil is among the touches that give Arcadia Bluffs, above Lake Michigan near Manistee, a British Isles flavor. (Photo by Harrison Shiels)<\/p><\/div>\n

The word\u00a0haggis<\/em>\u00a0strikes fear in the hearts of milquetoast eaters not familiar with the traditional Scottish dish. But when Emmy Award-winning\u00a0English sportscaster Ben Wright came to\u00a0Michigan\u00a0to celebrate his 80th\u00a0birthday, the culinary team at Arcadia Bluffs Golf Club, north of Manistee, showed the courage of a rampant lion. Arcadia Bluffs, open to the public for lunch, dinner, golf, or overnight stays, is designed to with a British Isles-style look. Since Wright has Scottish heritage, general manager Bill Shriver asked Arcadia\u2019s head chef Brett Phillips if he\u2019d attempt to prepare the haggis as a surprise for Wright\u2019s birthday party scheduled in\u00a0Arcadia\u2019s private dining room by locals Chuck and Georgia Bavol.<\/p>\n

\u201cChef Phillips loved the idea of a challenge and everyone in the kitchen got involved,\u201d said Shriver.<\/p>\n

Getting a recipe and gathering the proper ingredients in Northern Michigan, not the Mull of Kintyre, Glasgow,\u00a0Edinburgh, or\u00a0Aberdeen, wasn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a little research,\u201d said Phillips. \u201cAnd since you can\u2019t get sheep\u2019s stomach in the\u00a0United States\u00a0I had to use a pig\u2019s stomach.\u201d<\/p>\n

What? Pig stomach!<\/p>\n

\u201cHaggis is kidneys, liver and lungs grinded up, mixed with spices and oatmeal, stuffed inside a stomach and boiled for six hours,\u201d Phillips explained. \u201cI made several. The first couple was a complete disaster. One of them even exploded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Wright admitted that if you\u2019re eating haggis for the first time, \u201cit is best not to know what\u2019s in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When hunting meant survival in old\u00a0Scotland, all parts of the dead animal had to be used. Since the innards and organs were the most perishable, they had to be consumed first.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was ultimately amazed at how delicious it was,\u201d said Phillips.<\/p>\n

\u201cBest I\u2019ve ever tasted,\u201d agreed Wright, who was, along with his guests, presented with the steaming stomach during a traditional \u201cHaggis Ceremony,\u201d\u00a0\u00a0which took place in the gloaming (twilight) with a sunset view from Arcadia\u2019s glass dining room over the golden dunes into Lake Michigan. World champion bagpiper Stephen MacNeil from Brethren,\u00a0Michigan, who performs nightly at Arcadia Bluffs, and his son Roddy, who attends\u00a0Alma\u00a0College\u00a0on a piping scholarship, serenaded the Haggis with a musical procession while Chef Phillips pushed a rolling cart carrying the platter.<\/p>\n

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Arcadia Bluffs' haggis, prepared in honor of visiting English sportscaster Ben Wright on his 80th birthday.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t seen a traditional haggis ceremony since I was at the Gleneagles in\u00a0Scotland\u00a0in the 1950\u2019s,\u201d Wright exclaimed as MacNeil and Shriver smiled.<\/p>\n

MacNeil then dramatically stabbed the stomach with a dagger and pronounced an \u201cOde to Haggis\u201d by famed Scottish poet Robbie Burns which included the words:\u00a0\u201cStomach, tripe or guts, well are you worthy of a grace\u2026while through your pores the juices emerge like amber beads.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Mmmm.<\/p>\n

After preparing the haggis,\u00a0Arcadia\u2019s kitchen staff wondered what to do with the extra seven pounds of ground lamb leftover, so \u201cLamb Ragu\u201d appeared on the menu as a special that night: \u201cSlow cooked ground lamb tossed with linguine, roasted garlic and tomato with baby spinach and olive oil.\u201d \u201cWe sold 23 of them!\u201d Shriver beamed.<\/p>\n

Visit\u00a0www.ArcadiaBluffs.com<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for more information.<\/span><\/p>\n

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at\u00a0InviteYourself@aol.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>or via\u00a0www.TravelTattler.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The word\u00a0haggis\u00a0strikes fear in the hearts of milquetoast eaters not familiar with the traditional Scottish dish. But when Emmy Award-winning\u00a0English… ODE TO HAGGIS<\/i>“>Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":1369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3665,18,17,19164],"tags":[2834,3414,4546,598055,28,598266,598573,598780],"class_list":["post-1367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-library","category-lifestyle","category-courses-and-travel","category-offcourse","tag-michigan","tag-arcadia-bluffs","tag-ben-wright","tag-haggis","tag-scotland","tag-scottish-food","tag-brett-phillips","tag-bill-shriver"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2012\/09\/DSCF0745.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1367"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1378,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions\/1378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}