My Haggis Journey

Growing up as a Scottish descendant in America, the word “haggis” could strike a whole host of emotions in a kid - from curiosity & wonder, to repulsion & disgust. Haggis was this mythical food stuff that was somehow important to my culture, an integral part of my heritage, yet had a reputation of being vile, and straight up just sounded gross. I mean, a sheep’s stomach? Yeah, gross. 

 

My clan tartan - McArthur

My dad told horror stories of going to giant Burns Banquets as a kid in the 50’s, school gymnasiums filled with hundreds of proud Scottish Americans celebrating the beloved Scottish poet Robert Burns. Burns Supper is a Scottish holiday celebrated on January 25th, it involves a meal of “haggis, neeps & tatties” (haggis, turnips & potatoes) drinking scotch, and reciting Robert Burns poetry. Traditionally the haggis is “piped in” (escorted in by the highland pipes) and then the Burns poem “Address to a Haggis” is recited over the steaming lump of pudding (pudding is a British word for sausage) then at the end of the poem the haggis is dramatically stabbed open with a dagger and served. My dad, a gangly red headed kid who was allergic to potatoes, had to sit around waiting for what felt like an eternity for the haggis to be piped in, gymnasium acoustics with highland pipes & all, read inaudible poetry over, and eventually served down the long lines of hungry mouths seated shoulder to shoulder along cafeteria style benches. Once he was finally served, he could only eat the haggis & turnips, and despised both of them.

In 1971 haggis was banned from the US, well not haggis specifically, lung meat was banned. Haggis is traditionally made with a sheep’s “pluck” - the lung, heart & liver, so there went both the import of haggis and small butchers shops ability to offer it. Therefor, growing up in the US during the 80’s & 90’s haggis was completely mythical, a thing that simply did not exist in my world outside of story & myth. Of course, I happily ate breakfast sausage, bratwursts & chorizo without a second thought as to their ingredients. Somehow as Americans we have separated the haggis from the simple sausage family of which it is a rather normal member, and elevated it to the air of mystique and disgust. I believe the mystique has to do with the Scottish attachment to, identification of and love for haggis. (It is after all the national dish of Scotland.) The mistrust and disgust comes from the import ban. Lung meat was banned because of the small possibility that stomach acid can enter the lungs during slaughter. I have since learned that this is actually a rather small concern and completely avoidable with humane slaughtering practice and careful butchering. Lung meat is actually very healthy and is loaded with B vitamins, iron, zinc and other essential nutrients, just like any organ meat. But also just like any organ meat, sourcing them from small scale organic farmers is always the safest choice, as industrially raised meat can harbor high levels of toxins in their organs.  

Haggis is traditionally made with a sheep’s pluck, suet, onion, oatmeal, and spices, all chopped up, then stuffed in the sheep’s stomach or rumen, and boiled. Now days haggis is often made with alternative casings such as plastic, canvas, ox bung, or pork intestine (like regular sausages.) One thing I’ve learned about haggis is that good haggis is really good, and bad haggis is really bad (kinda like any sausage really,) and that it’s all about the spices. Yup, that’s what it boils down to, haggis tastes just like whatever spices it’s made with. Traditional haggis recipes call for just salt, pepper and maybe mace (not my favorite spice combo, and probably where haggis got it’s “not particularly delicious” reputation,) but some modern haggis recipes can get really fancy and call for things as far out there as mesquite smoked blueberries!

My first experience with actually eating haggis was a powerful and memorable one… In the summer of 2000, I was an adventurous youth with a case of wanderlust and an intense call to explore my roots. I bought myself a plane ticket to London with no itinerary and nothing more than a fiddle and a backpack. As soon as I touched down on British soil I hopped on a train to Edinburgh, and spent my first few days exploring around Auld Reekie* and busking* on street corners. On my second or third day in Edinburgh, I was busking near High Street, when a young man stopped to put a coin in my case and listen to me fiddle. He hung around and listened to me play for a while, and we struck up a conversation. I told him I planned on hitchhiking around Scotland & he said “Well I’m not doing anything, can I come with you? I could show you around the country!” I agreed, and Pete ran home to pack. He returned shortly with a backpack, and we headed towards the motorway to hitchhike north, two teenage kids with nothing more than a new friendship and sense of adventure! 

{*Auld Reekie is Edinburgh's nickname. “Reek” is Scots dialect for “smoke.” Due to 17th century Edinburgh's fortressed walls, dense population burning cook stoves and fireplaces, and a literal lake of raw sewage in the very center of the city (what is now the Princess Street Gardens,) the city earned itself this demeaning nickname. Scotts have now embraced the nickname given to their capital city’s ripe past and lovingly refer to it as Auld Reekie. 

*Busking - The activity of playing music in the street or another public place for voluntary donations.}

Pete took me to some of his favorite places, camping in fields and by creeks. A few days into our journey, we passed through the quaint Highland village of Killin, located at the head of Loch Tay. We hitched a ride a little further down the road and set up camp on the north shore of the loch. I woke up the next morning with a scratchy sore throat. Being content with our camp on the Loch shore and not feeling well enough to travel, I gave Pete some money and sent him into Killin to buy food and refill our water bottles. He returned later that day with nothing more than empty water bottles, a 10lb sack of potatoes and a haggis. I was absolutely livid! I probably screamed the poor kid’s head off for a solid 30 minutes… I asked him “What were you thinking!?!” He explained that he went into the pub to fill the water bottles, but since he had some change left over after the market, he decided to sit down and have a pint of beer. After finishing his beer, he just forgot to fill the water bottles. “No” I said, “I’m talking about the food… You bought a 10lb sack of potatoes and a haggis! What the hell were you thinking? 10lbs of potatoes? We’re backpacking!” The crushed youth looked at me with scolded puppy dog eyes and simply said “But haggis and tatties are delicious!”

That evening, Pete boiled those potatoes and that little round haggis in the dark peaty water of the loch, over a fire made of drift wood on the cobbly beach in front of our tent. Still mad, but resigned, and very uncertain about this meal that Pete had cooked, I tentatively took my first cautious nibble of the mythical brown mush before me… And it was surprisingly delicious! It even had a bit of a spicy cayenne kick to it! I ate hungrily, never once stopping to realize just how special that moment was. It didn’t magically cure my sore throat or anything (Pete’s Gran’s hot toddies in the Hebrides - where Pete took me next - did that,) but it did make me feel better and I slept like a baby that night, curled up in my tent on the shore of Loch Tay, with a belly fully of haggis and tatties cooked in Loch Tay water…

The view from our camp on the shores of Loch Tay where I had my first taste of haggis

I later ended up living in a small village called Fearnan on the north shore of Loch Tay, just a few miles down the road from where we camped that night, with a view of the loch from my window. I can still see that view when I close my eyes… Loch Tay became very much an integral part of the fabric of my very being, a place I love so much that it defines a part of who I am. In retrospect, I marvel at the magic, or fate, or intuition, or just sheer dumb luck, that brought me to that moment on the banks of Loch Tay during my first week in Scotland, of randomly meeting the acquaintance of that young man whose guidance brought me there and whose addled teenage Scottish brain thought that a haggis and a 10 lb sack of potatoes was optimal backpacking rations. 

The view of Loch Tay from my window where I lived in Fearnan

I am still friends with Pete, and wrote him recently, thanking him for that experience of the haggis on the loch shore. He had actually forgotten all about it! I’m sure that getting yelled at by his new friend and traveling companion was far from his favorite memory of our little hitchhiking around the highlands & islands adventure! For me though, that day has stuck with me as one of the most profound and magical experiences of my life. For a Scottish American, experiencing the home land for the first time, to be given such a true Scottish culinary experience in one of the most beautiful, awkward, and magical ways possible… I didn’t have a choice, I had to eat that haggis, and was pleasantly surprise by it!

Fast forward twenty years to the summer of 2020. I hadn’t had a single bite of haggis since moving back home to the states in 2002. The global COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing, my business was closed for the season, and I was hunkered down isolating on my property, attempting to grow food since I didn’t know what else useful to do with myself. I ended up with two banded Icelandic lambs (castrated males) from the farmer I usually buy lamb meat from. She was liquidating her livestock because she wasn’t able to get them processed for commercial sale due to the outbreaks in Colorado meat packing plants. I bought the lambs for $75 each, knowing I had a lush pasture (my back yard) to raise them in, and figuring it was probably a wise investment in food security, knowing full well that I would have to process them myself.

Our two banded Icelandic lambs

 The lambs were a delight to have around, though we all tried our hardest to not get too attached to them knowing they were destined for the crock pot and had been very specifically a food investment. It was hard to not get attached though, for being half feral they were super sweet, soft, funny, sometimes a pain in my ass, but always brought a smile to my face. Despite the growing fondness, I never lost sight of my goal or their purpose, food. I began to read up on the art of butchering, and in exploring that realm of processing livestock oneself, I came to the realization that I would be able to make haggis! I could make my own haggis from my own sheep!!!

 

I started reading everything I could about making haggis. I read articles, recipes and blogs, I watched Scottish Chef YouTube videos, I read recipe archives from the 18th century. My most treasured source though was an old tattered book that lives on the short end of the cookbooks in the corner of my kitchen. It’s glossy color print paper cover is torn, the sepia toned photo of half a salmon on a cutting board, surrounded by things like a shiny steel pot, bowls of brown eggs and fresh parsley, a McCormic brand tin of mace and cardboard box of table salt, date the book. “The Scots Kitchen - It’s Lore & Recipes” by F. Marian McNeill. First published in 1929 by Blackie & Son Limited in Glasgow, this copy is a 1963 second edition. Inside the front cover is an inscription “To Mom, Christmas 1964 from Sue” The book had belonged to my Grandmother, Charlotte McArthur and was a gift from her daughter, my Aunt Sue. I’m not sure how I came to be the lucky one to inherit this particular book, and haven’t paid too much mind to it in the past, except to look up an occasional oatcake recipe. Of which I’m not sure I’ve even made any of the ones from this book, finding the recipes to be not very straightforward and strongly unfamiliar to my twenty first century trained brain - measuring in parts & pinches or various vessels such as “breakfastcupful,” as opposed to the standard cups and teaspoons of familiarity, written in paragraphs with strange instructions rather than sensical steps.

 

My grandmothers cookbook

Opening the dated family heirloom this time though, I found a wealth of information to perfectly suit my needs! The very first header under the chapter titled “Dishes Of Meat” is Haggis. Followed immediately by the first stanza of “Address to a Haggis” by Robert Burns.
“Fair fa’ your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the pudding race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
    Painch, tripe, or thairm.
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
    As lang’s my airm.”
More history, lore, poetry and quotes are sited before getting to “Traditional Cottage Recipe,” the first of four haggis recipes, at the bottom of the second page. It was here I found much of the information missing from google searches, even in-depth ones. Here was straight up instructions on preparing the rumen bag, timelines from butchering to boiling, traditional spices and “modern sundry refinements” such as lemon and cayenne, and tips and tricks for things like sewing the rumen into smaller multiple haggis. There were recipes for prize winning haggis, royal haggis, and deer haggis, not to mention all the little snippets, quotes, tips and ingredient lists from other people & publications.

I eventually compiled enough of a basic knowledge base as to have a good idea of how I wanted to make my haggis. I knew I wanted to use both hearts & lungs, and had decided to use the kidneys and tongues instead of the livers. (I love lamb liver and wanted to save them just for frying up with onions!) The tongues & kidneys were a tip from my Scotts Kitchen book, one of the wee snippets suggesting that “tongues and kidneys make for a finer haggis.”  I settled on a garlic and rosemary based seasoning approach, and even went so far as to source highland beef suet. Every single recipe I found, even the archived ones from the 18th & 19th century’s, called for beef suet. I found this odd, considering that sheep also have suet (suet is the fat from around the kidneys of sheep and cattle,) and one would think that the origin of making haggis is really about using the whole animal. Assuming it was a flavor thing, I decided to use beef suet.* Fortunately there is a rancher nearby who raises Highland Cattle and I was able to get a bag of “hairy coo” suet from her for my haggis project!

{*In retrospect of this project, having rendered down the suet from my lambs, I do now know the much stronger flavor of lamb vs beef suet. I cook with it frequently though, and think it would be just fine in haggis. I can only assume that beef suet was something that your average highland crofter would regularly have on hand, preferring to use it for all things cooking, while saving the stronger flavored lamb suet for things like candles and soaps.}

When slaughter day came, I had an instructor come help me. Even though I was willing to do it with the help of friends with basic butchering skills, I know myself well enough to know that I learn optimally with the help of a professional instructor. (I think that may come from being an instructor of strange yet artful skills myself.) I was fortunate enough to find such an instructor in my region, and that he was able to work me into his schedule. “Jason the Butcher” as he’s known, showed up on a crisp November morning, and turned out to be exactly the kind of teacher that I learn well and efficiently from. I had told Jason of my haggis plans, and he was totally on board!

Jason showed genuine honor and reverence for my sheep at slaughter time, with care and concern for their most peaceful and easy transition. He had a device called a bolt stunner, which works to knock the animal out so that they instantly and quietly know nothing. My hope was to use the bolt stunner while they had their heads blissfully buried in a bucket of grain. But they were distrustful of this tall stranger with the bright shiny object in his hand, and try as we might, they always knew when he was there and pulled their heads out of the bucket dodging him! Eventually I decided to hold them in a sheering hold- basically in my lap on their butts, with their back up against my chest. They go completely calm and limp when held like this, and while it wasn’t the blissful bucket of grain to oblivion transition like I had hoped, it was still calm, peaceful, humane… They were just held in my arms in that “Ok, I guess we’re getting sheered again” resignation while I whispered sweet nothings of gratitude and grace into their fuzzy ears.

After skinning, Jason showed me how to remove the guts. But that first sheep was so full of grain from all our attempts at dispatching him while in bucket bliss, that it was a little touch & go for even the professional there for a minute! The intestines and stomaches all fell out onto the ground with a squelch, and Jason picked up the rumen to show me the next step… I fully copped out. Whole lotta nope. The smell was terrible and that stomach was so packed full of grain it was practically bursting. Jason offered to bring me sausage casings from CO Springs the the next day, and I took him up on it right then & there. Step one of my haggis journey was a dud. Turned out I could slaughter my sheep, skin them and cut up steaks & roasts just fine… But I haven’t yet found the stomach for cleaning out the stomaches. (Yeah, bad pun intended.)

I felt like a little bit of a copout, but was not going to let that deter me from my end goal of homemade haggis! After all, most store bought haggis in Scotland these days is cased in plastic anyways…

 

The organs from my sheep, ready to become haggis

I started boiling organs first thing the next morning after extracting the kidneys & tongues. The “plucks” - heart, lungs & liver, were harvested the day before & kept fresh in the fridge over night (I now understand why they’re called a “pluck,” the heart, liver & lungs come out all attached to each other like one tidy little package!) After boiling for two hours, I pulled all the organs out of the pot and set them on two large plates to cool on the counter, then went back out to the cold outbuilding where Jason & I were cutting up roast, steaks & lamb chops all day.

 

 

A little while later my phone rang, it was my husband. (We often call each other when one of us is elsewhere on the property, instead of going to look for the other person like humans used to do before we all had small personal computers glued to our pockets at all times…) I answered, expecting him to have some small benign question for me. He did indeed have a question, turns out it was not very benign though. “Um, hey babe?” “Yeah?” “Um, you know those plates on the counter?” “Yeah…?” “Was there supposed to be meat on them?” “Oh shit! Oh shit oh shit oh shit!” I ran towards the house as fast as I could, hanging up the phone and startling Jason as I left. I burst into the kitchen to find a few small lonely pieces of boiled organs on one plate, the other plate completely empty, and my shepherd wolf mix Rio making the world most adorable “I’m in big trouble & I know it!” toothy face at me.

My world burst. All my work, all my planning, all my haggis hopes and dreams… Gone, in a few hurried dog bites that I’m sure were worth every ounce of guilt. I was devastated. I went through every emotion possible in those first 30 seconds of realization that felt like an eternity. My daughter walked into the kitchen and asked innocently “What happened?” My emotionally charged mouth fired “You let the dogs in!” before I had a split second to check myself. As soon as the words left my mouth I regretted them, I regretted them a billion times more than I regretted leaving the organs to cool on the counter. My poor kiddo who had zero fault in the ordeal and did not deserve my outburst or any blame whatsoever, turned and hightailed it to her room with my spewing useless apologies after her. Eventually she did accept my apology, but it took a lot of explaining to her that it wasn’t her fault in any way shape or form, that she was absolutely not responsible in any way whatsoever. I never told her I had left organ meats cooling on the counter, I never asked her to leave the dogs outside. They scratched at her window, like they do when they want in, and she let them in, like she always does, like the good kid she is. She did everything right. I was the royal cockup here, no-one else.  

I couldn’t really blame Rio either, she’s a good dog. Not usually one to help herself to tidbits that aren’t hers, she’s licked the occasional plate left at nose level on the coffee table, but has never helped herself to anything on the counter before. But, then again, I have never left two heaping, steaming plates of freshly boiled organ meats completely unattended and oh so very temptingly on the counter before…

Feeling like the worst mom ever, and knowing that my poor daughter felt like the worst kid ever,  (for no reason other than my inability to check myself in that initial moment of upset.) We eventually wandered back into the kitchen to assess the damage. There was half a heart, a few pieces of lung and one tongue left. Acceptance was my first step. Most of the meat was gone, and there was nothing I could do about that. There was no use crying over it, I had already messed up big time by letting my emotions get the best of me in the heat of the moment. It was time to pick up the pieces and move on, with or without haggis.

Feeling crushed, but not quite defeated, I pulled a calf liver out of the back of the freezer, plopped it and the remaining organs back in the pot, brought it to boil, set another two hour timer and went back to work carving up the carcasses. While bagging up the ground meat at the end of the evening, I set aside two pounds to make up for the rest of my missing organ meat.

In a perfect example of the American views on haggis as being nothing more than the butt of a joke, I did what most people do in this day and age when something upsetting happens... I posted to Facebook. It was a simple post, it just said "My dog just ate my haggis fixings!" followed by a crying emoji face. It didn't seem funny to me at the time, I was legitimately bummed out and feeling so very crushed. By that evening my post was flooded with comments like "Oh the poor dog!" And "That's a good dog for saving you from haggis!" At first it bothered me, I was sad and had reached out looking for comfort from my community of friends via the only social interactions outside ones household available in the pandemic world of 2020, and everyone thought it was just a joke! I mean, that's all haggis is, right? A joke! One or two of my Scottish friends responded with utter sympathy & the "care" reaction. Everyone else just laughed. I commented on the thread that I had actually intended on making haggis from my sheep that I had just processed, that I actually like haggis (shocking!) and that I was legitimately bummed about it. Most everyone apologized, saying they really had thought I was joking. I realized that the post probably did look hilarious to all of my American friends, and I read through all of the comments again with that in mind. Ultimately, the jokes in response to what my friends thought was a joke helped me to be more lighthearted about my situation, to take it in stride and have a renewed sense of determination in completing my haggis project despite the setbacks.

 

Some of the delicious steaks & chops

The following day, with all of the butchering work behind me and a freezer chock full of local, organic, grass fed lamb, I began in earnest to make haggis. I toasted the steel cut oats to a light golden brown perfection, finely diced four large onions and the salvaged organ meats, mixed it all together with the ground lamb, grated suet and my favorite spices. Once I had it all mixed and ready to go, I realized that I had no idea how to stuff sausage casings! Sausage casings were not part of my original plan, I had researched how to clean out and cut up a rumen, not how to stuff pork casings! A quick google search revealed that if I was cool enough to have a standard mixer, there is both a meat grinder and sausage stuffing attachment that you can put on it. But all I have is handheld beaters… Useless for stuffing sausage. I tried various hand stuffing suggestions that mostly worked about as well as a broken watch, but did eventually figure out a funnel & spoon method that worked as good as I was gonna get, and commenced to stuff. 

Stuffing haggis in sausage casing by hand

There was a lot of haggis to stuff, a lot. Like, really a lot. In retrospect, I could have halved my recipe and made the equivalent of a one sheep’s pluck recipe, but because my original recipe was for two sheep’s plucks, for some reason I just substituted to the same weight ratios & made the same amount of haggis! The stuffing was almost Sisyphean in nature… I thought it would never end! (I literally gave myself blisters and had sore hand muscles for days after!) I stuffed and boiled wee haggis sausages until 3am. 

 

 

Boiling haggis

 Towards the last third of my pot of haggis to be stuffed, I had a stroke of genius. I pulled out a package of fresh roasted Hatch green chili, and mixed it in with my haggis! They say that ones nurture is equally as important as their nature, and having grown up in New Mexico, green chili is my soul food. If I do say so myself, green chili haggis is a match made in heaven! I can’t imagine I’m the first New Mexican raised Scottish descendant to have thought of such a combo. It is entirely possible though that I am the first to make that combo happen. This will definitely not be the last though! My ultimate comfort food is green chili on either potatoes or a bowl of steel cut oat porridge. New Mexican nurture and Scottish nature, it would seem I am a slave to my DNA & my environment. In all seriousness though, green chili haggis is devine!

 

A beautiful stack of finished haggis!

 

After stuffing & boiling haggis for the better part of a 24 hr cycle, I froze them all. It was probably a week later before I pulled out a package and cooked us a proper Scottish breakfast of fried haggis, mushrooms & tomatoes, toast & soft boiled eggs. I was nervous taking that first bite, even though I had fried up a taste of it to test the spices when mixing it all up. There was something nerve wracking about serving up that first meal though, that moment of truth which would define whether my labor of love had produced “good haggis” or “bad haggis.” And there was something especially nerve wracking about serving it to my family, who up until that very moment had been your typical Scottish American living in that place of awe and distrust of this mythical food. (My husband is also of Scottish descent.)

 

A delicious haggis breakfast

I nervously popped a small fried round of haggis into my mouth, and to my utter delight and immense relief, it was delicious! In fact, it was utterly delicious! I had done it! I had made haggis, right here in Colorado, with sheep I raised. I had made flawed, copped out, substituted, dog eaten, blood sweat and tears, haggis. And it was delicious.
 

My daughter wasn’t particularly impressed either way, but ate the haggis without complaint, and my husband loved it! The biggest thing I learned that morning is actually that my daughter doesn’t like the fried tomatoes ubiquitous with a good Scottish fry up breakfast, and my husband doesn’t like the mushrooms! (Now I just give them each others portion of the other and they’re happy as can be whenever I cook this breakfast.)

It wasn’t until the evening that I cooked haggis neeps & tatties for dinner that my daughter decided she actually loves haggis! It probably helps that mashed potatoes are one of her favorite foods, but the first time I cooked haggis neeps & tatties, she declared “Wow! Mom! I think this might be my all time favorite meal! Can we eat this all the time?” “Aaha!” I replied “Turns out she’s Scottish after all!” My husband still likes it fried for breakfast best, and my daughter prefers it boiled for dinner, but it won them over. That humble haggis that so haunts us Scottish Americans, and that won me over in that magical rugged Scottish way, on the shores of Loch Tay over 20 years ago, won over my skeptical family who watched me labor over these silly sausages, thinking me crazy.

Haggis, neeps & tatties

My dad was the next challenge. After his soured childhood taste for the stuff, and the look he gave me when I told him he must come over for Burns Supper, I knew he was going to be a tough nut to crack. So I started him with breakfast too, and it worked! He was pleasantly surprised by his breakfast haggis and thoroughly enjoyed the whole fry up. I fed him a good Scottish breakfast a few times between mid November and the end of January, priming the palate for Burns Supper. Come Jan 25th, we started the evening with a tasting flight of a couple different Glenmorangie cask finishes, a Speyside, and another Highland malt from a small distillery near Loch Tay. I queued up a recording of Scotland the Brave on pipes, and Address to a Haggis read by someone who can pronounce Burns poems. We all stabbed our individual haggis (being in sausage casing, they weren’t the majestic “Great pudding o' the chieftain race” one usually associates with the grand procession and theatrics of a Burns Supper,) and we all enjoyed a quiet yet festive and lovely evening of lively discussions on topics such as memories, travel, heritage and culture while listening to one of my favorite Scottish bands, Old Blind Dogs. I made a sweet potato for my dad so that he could have the tattie part of his haggis and neeps for the first time, and he enjoyed every last bite of his Burns Supper for the first time ever.

Burns Supper 2021

I know that it might seem a silly or small thing, to have won for my family, that cultural haggis battle that rages inside every American raised Scottish descendant. But there is something special about it, something that connects us to our heritage in a small yet very meaningful way, something that makes Scotland feel a little closer. Having made my own haggis, I feel even more connected to my roots, my ancestry- through the process, the research and the act. I’d missed haggis, and while I still miss Scotland like I miss a piece of my own soul, as least I have haggis again.

"If ye wish her gratefu' pray'r, Gie her a haggis!"