For centuries it has been a symbol of Scotland alongside tartan, bagpipes and whisky.
But haggis is actually an English creation, a food historian has discovered.
The claim has sparked a fierce backlash from proud Scots who eat the dish every January to celebrate the poet Robert Burns, who wrote in praise of 'the great chieftain of the puddin' race'.
Food historian Catherine Brown has found mentions of haggis in an English cooking guide from 1615 which proves it was being eaten south of the border some 171 years before Robert Burns wrote his Address to the Haggis.

The writer, herself a Scot, found a reference to the 'delicacy' in the 17th century book 'The English Hus-wife', by Gervase Markham.
It says 'small oat meal mixed with the blood, and the liver of either sheep, calfe, or swine, maketh that pudding which is called the Haggas, or Haggus of whose goodnesse it is vain to boast, because there is hardly to be found a man that doth not affect (like) them.'

 
Miss Brown said the earliest reference to a Scottish haggis she could find was from 1747 - pointing to the likelihood that the recipe had been copied from English sources.
 


Burns honoured it in his famous poem of 1786 as a way to undermine the pretentious French cuisine in Edinburgh at the time.

Miss Brown added: 'It seems to be that there's an identity thing there. We'd lost our monarchy, we'd lost our parliament and we gained our haggis.'
Not surprisingly, her claims have been dismissed by Scots. Ian Scott, a member of the Saltire Society, suggested haggis was a Scottish invention introduced into England by a Scot.
He said: 'I can just imagine a backpacker on his way south maybe having a picnic and leaving a bit behind, and someone saying we've discovered something fantastically new.'
Mr Scott added: 'I love haggis and every January I eat it about 11 times. These claims won't make me feel any different.
'I would tuck into it with even greater gusto if I thought that it had been invented by the English. I mean, they are bound to have invented something worthwhile.'
James Macsween, director of award-winning Edinburgh haggis-maker Macsween's, said it will remain a Scottish icon whatever its origin.
He added: 'Haggis is now renowned as Scotland's dish largely due to Robert Burns, who made it famous.
'That's not to say that, prior to Burns, haggis wasn't eaten in England, but Scotland has done a better job of looking after it.
'I didn't hear of Shakespeare writing a poem about haggis.'