Regardless of how much the thought of haggis absolutely revolts me, it had to happen. If you’ve never heard of haggis, it’s a traditional Scottish dish comprised of sheep’s pluck (heart, liver and lungs), then traditionally encased in the animal’s stomach and cooked for three hours before being generously scooped onto a plate and served to you.

The full name of the dish is actually “haggis, neeps and tatties”, with neeps being the colloquial term for turnips and tatties meaning potatoes. But despite the vegetables that would accompany our dish, we ordered an extremely potent scotch to partially drown out the taste and waited with bated breath for our dish. When it finally arrived it smelled surprisingly good. And upon tasting it – and withholding my instantaneous gag reflex – I realised it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it reminded me of a spicy beef mince. But the mind is powerful, and with every bite – despite the bearable flavour – I had images of what it was that I was actually consuming.

I almost ate the whole thing, but eventually succumbed and gave it to my friend to polish off. I won’t be trying that again any time soon (read: not ever).