Boudin. Is it really just Cajun haggis?

[Guiness gets my Irish up]

I was born and raised in Louisiana. In the Southern part of the state, there exists a delicacy known as boudin. It resembles a sausage but consists mainly of meat, liver, and rice. Boudin is often seasoned with green onion and cayenne pepper. It's traditionally encased in an intestine or a sausage casing. I've eaten it all my life but I've never once eaten haggis. From what I've read on the subject, haggis is organ meat and barley encased in a sheep's stomach. Can anyone who has eaten both chime in and explain the difference/similarity of the two?

[Tobus]

I was born and raised in Louisiana. In the Southern part of the state, there exists a delicacy known as boudin. It resembles a sausage but consists mainly of meat, liver, and rice. Boudin is often seasoned with green onion and cayenne pepper. It's traditionally encased in an intestine or a sausage casing. I've eaten it all my life but I've never once eaten haggis. From what I've read on the subject, haggis is organ meat and barley encased in a sheep's stomach. Can anyone who has eaten both chime in and explain the difference/similarity of the two?

I've eaten my fair share of both, but won't profess to be an expert on either. That said, there are similarities. Meat and organs mixed with a grain and seasoning, cooked in a casing. Variations of this theme are found all over the world, derived from more primitive means of cooking. Sadly, we can't get authentic haggis in the US due to laws concerning the use of certain parts like lungs in human-grade food. So we just get a near approximation of it here.

The boudin I usually encounter is pork and rice, in a small casing the size of a sausage link. To me, it's a much lighter dish than haggis. The meat and grain choice (pork/rice) just doesn't seem as heavy on the gut as haggis. And from the examples I've had, the liver flavour is much less pronounced with boudin than it is with haggis. The spices in boudin tend to drive a lot of the flavour, while the haggis flavour is very strongly driven by the organ meats. Some would call it overpowering, even. And while the rice in boudin tends to be a more neutral grain that adds bulk without much flavour of its own, the barley in haggis adds a lot of background flavour.

Haggis is a very crude dish. I don't mean that in a bad way; it's just a dish where the flavours are strongly powered by the taste of the inside of a sheep and a coarse grain.

[Guiness gets my Irish up]

I know what you mean by a "crude" dish. When I was a youngster, my mother tried to introduce me to "blood pudding." it's a type of boudin made with congealed pig blood mixed into it. I didn't care for it and it's not generally seen for sale in stores anymore. Some people in South Louisiana still make and consume it though.

[Tobus]

Ah yes, blood pudding or blood sausage is another type of dish that is common to many cultures. My twin brother has a German wife, and when they were visiting her family in Germany he decided he would order blood sausage (blutwurst) at a restaurant. They all asked him, "are you sure you want to do that?" but he was confident. He had a hard time keeping it down, but had to save face and eat it all anyway - and pretend to like it!

One of the things I meant by calling haggis a crude dish is that it comes from a lifestyle of subsistence farming. While it has become a national dish symbolic of Scottish culture (in large part thanks to Rabbie Burns), it was originally known as something only eaten by poor crofters who had nothing else to eat. All the good parts of the sheep were used elsewhere, for others, and the working families had to subsist on what no one else wanted. So they made the best of it, using up the crude leftovers after butchering a sheep. All they could do was grind up organs and stuff them into the stomach lining along with some grain as filler. Seasoning was very basic with whatever they had from the kailyard. It was not a dish eaten by the upper classes, and was seen as only something the poorest of the poor would eat, just one step above eating garbage. But the Highland Revival in the early 1800s sort of romanticized it along with everything else, and it has since become a prized symbol of the tenacity of Highland culture and their ability to make do with whatever they have.

[Guiness gets my Irish up]

As settlers came to Louisiana from Nova Scotia (and other places), they brought as much of their culture as they could carry with them. "Cracklins" and "chittlins" (the least wanted parts of a slaughtered hog) became delicacies along with crawfish/crayfish, alligator and whatever else they could glean from the land (or swamp) because food was often hard to come by. French cuisine infused with African and Caribbean flair and spices became "Cajun" and "Creole" fare. While this type of "fusion" is fundamentally true virtually everywhere else in the world, you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere in the world that has done it more successfully than in Louisiana.

[Macman]

Another connection to France: "Le Boudin" is the official march of the French Foreign Legion.

[tripleblessed]

It was not a dish eaten by the upper classes, and was seen as only something the poorest of the poor would eat, just one step above eating garbage.
But the Highland Revival in the early 1800s sort of romanticized it along with everything else, and it has since become a prized symbol of the tenacity of Highland culture and
their ability to make do with whatever they have.

Many of my folk were very poor in Scotland, Ireland and England. Coming here was not by choice, but force or starvation. Being able to OWN land apparently persuaded them
they had magically become "gentry". My mother's line felt that they were above such dishes. When a friend brought chitlins to school as a recess snack and I found what chitlins
are, I was very grateful for their thinking. Still am. No haggis for me, either. Of course, after no meat since 1979, even if I could get such down and keep it down, I'd probably
face fairly dire consequences. My hat is off to those who had the ingenuity to find ways to use everything, and the strength to flourish despite how they were treated.

I do manage to handle addressing the haggis, and the execution of the poor beast, but leave the delight of consumption to others.

[Rokerr2163]

I have not tried boudin, but I have eaten haggis and like it. A similar dish is the Filipino dish dinuguan made with pork (or whatever meat is available), boiled blood and usually served over steamed rice.

[MacKenzie]

...it was originally known as something only eaten by poor crofters who had nothing else to eat. All the good parts of the sheep were used elsewhere, for others, and the working families had to subsist on what no one else wanted. So they made the best of it, using up the crude leftovers after butchering a sheep.

This is why haggis has always reminded me of Bouillabaisse. The latter being made from the fish not fit for market boiled with the leftovers (shells) from other seafare.

[Guiness gets my Irish up]

My mother used to make a roux-based fish stew called "court bouillon" while my paternal grandfather was well known for his turtle sauce piquante recipe. My first wife was from Maryland. She discovered boiled crawfish while attending college in Louisiana. She wanted to do a crawfish boil for her friends while visiting home but was only able to find crawfish for sale in Maryland at a fishing bait shop.