Backgound: before heading off on my first trip to the UK the other week, I was given 2 missions by fellow gweilos from work, craving particular food stuffs they haven't been able to get their mittens on in Hong Kong.
The 2 missions were:
1) Hunt down and return a fist full of Yorkies chocolates for Trudge , my work supervisor
2) Hunt down and return some tinned haggis for Fothers, my Scottish colleague - yes, "tinned" is no telegraphic typo!
The first was a no-brainer - especially given we were spending time in the lovely city of York itself.
The second one, we had some problems with. Not being sure about the Scots reputation for humour, I originally took this request with a grain of salt, thinking it's just as likely that my colleagues was having a lend of me.After checking several supermarkets, food establishments and even with a couple "alleged" locals for the whereabouts of this illusive preserved product, I was beginning to believe it might just be a request of shits and giggles for my Mac-work mate.
We'd all but given up, when we found ourselves wandering through the "new" town, down Rose lane, and stumble upon this little fellow in a window:
Surely the site of half-elk, half-man mannequin wearing a kilt could only be seen as some sort of Scottish sign – a mystical guide on a hunt for food enlightenment perhaps?
With the faintest scent that we might be on the right trail, we pressed on down Rose lane with more hurried gate. Upon seeing the T junction marking the end of Rose lane, it appeared that the trail may have slipped us past but there, at the end, something glistened to us – it was an all-night supermarket!
Was this to be the hideout of the haggis cans?
Trying to get my head inside that of a native's, I thought, "If I couldn't sleep and needed some haggis, where would I go… to the all night supermarket for tinned haggis of course!"
So into the supermarket the hunt continued, scouring each isle with that careful and detailed approach which would make the Taliban quiver in their caves. Up and back, down and across we hunted. Our prey was not complying. It was not revealing itself.
The hunt party rendezvoused in a seemingly non-descript isle for a strategic consultation and reassessment of the hunt's happenings to date but seemingly was just that. For with my peripheries, I spotted a SPAM can!
Surely, if we were going to find sheep stomach and offal in a can anywhere, it was going to be in this isle. Near this glorious Monty Python meat by-product. Then, just a few labels away, we saw something else that hinted our hunt was on target:
It was can of Lunch Tongue, mmmm, Lunch Tongue!
[Not to be confused with dinner tongue of course… no, no, that would be just plain silly.]
With the heat of hunt reaching boiling point, we cast our eyes to the neighbouring item and there, in all of it's air-tight goodness, our prey revealed itself:
To top off the hunt, as if the find was not enough on it's own, there was something else to make this even more special.
What could be better then haggis in a can, you ask? Why, 30% extra Haggis free of course!
P.S. Have you ever wondered what one wears under a kilt?
Check out Elk-man for the answer!
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