U.K. to U.S.: End the Haggis Ban

America’s chaps
across the pond are extending a sort of olive branch – one that’s
made of minced sheep heart, lungs, and liver. The government of the
United Kingdom hopes that trade talks this week will mark the end
of a longstanding U.S. ban on the Scottish delicacy haggis.

BBC reported
this weekend on the situation, and explained why Americans are
starved of this dish:

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson will raise the issue with
senior officials from the Obama administration this week.

Scottish producers had asked Paterson to take action when he
visited the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh earlier this
month.

Haggis imports have been outlawed in the US since 1971.

The ban was put in place because the country’s food standards
agency prohibits sheep lungs – one of the key ingredients of haggis
– in food products. …

During his visit, Paterson will also ask for Scottish lamb to be
allowed back into America, following a ban imposed in 1989.

The U.K. government said it hoped the ban could be lifted as
part of an E.U.-U.S. trade deal, known as the Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership, which is currently being
negotiated.

A
meeting between Paterson and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack took
place yesterday, but so far “neither the Agriculture Department nor
the British Embassy responded with an update on how the meeting
went,”
explains The Washington Post.

This isn’t the first time the U.K. has petitioned the U.S. to
end the ban. Reason‘s Katherine Mangu-Ward highlighted
the last bid in 2010, which despite a great deal of promise, never
came to fruition.