Oatcakes with haggis!
Seriously - that’s how I’ve served haggis as a finger food. I used Walker’s oatcakes, a spoonful or two of haggis on each oatcake, with a dab of mustard on top.
If you want to use oatcake as a sweet, just set them out with a pot of honey, to be spooned onto the oatcake. That’s a pretty traditional and simple way of serving them.
You could maybe try for some recipes from Nova Scotia and area (there’s some pretty good cookbooks out there, and a number of the things mentioned here I’ve seen in and made from my favourite cookbook!)
For sweets, my favourite is Cape Breton Pork Pies* (there is no pork in them, but small sweet sweet tarts… even sweeter than butter tarts and so very good. Mom makes them every year for Christmas…)
*That’s the same recipe we use, only we skip the sugar in the dates completely because the shells and the icing is more than enough. We also use butter icing, not maple.
Best way to eat oatcakes is just with butter, or a slice of cheese on top. At least that’s how we always at them at Nana’s. Yum!
You know, I’m reminded of that original-cast SNL sketch where the guest-host – I think it was Jeff Goldblum – takes his girlfriend to a Scottish restaurant in Manhattan. “We eat French . . . we eat Chinese . . . we never eat Scottish!” But when they hear the menu, the only thing that doesn’t totally disgust them is oatcakes.
And a later SNL sketch, with Mike Meyers and Kyle Machlachan, father and son running the “Everything Scottish” store in the shopping mall.
MACLACHLAN: Haggis! Blood pudding! It’s like all Scottish cuisine is based on a dare!
mmm - blood pudding - mmmm.
that wouldn’t be a bad finger food. And if you could get its Irish cousin, white sausage, you could have both on the same tray.
Crepes. They’re the national food of Brittany, and you can pretty much put anything in them.
Good one!!
Mussels. Bivalve shellfish in general.
No idea if they’re common in Ireland or Scotland, but Galicia is renowned for them.
Very common off the west coast. A lot of it ends up in Spain.
Here’s a previous thread that I’ve saved with a few ideas.
Cockles and mussels (alive, alive oh).
Salmon. Either good quality smoked stuff, if you can lay your hands on it, or just bake whole fillets and serve it cold along with nice chunky bread.
Little pancakes, drop scones or sweet, oaty crackers, topped with a little dollop of cranachan, with a fresh raspberry or two on top. You could put blueberry compote on some of them (blueberries aren’t authentic for that region, but they’re close enough to bilberries - especially in a compote - that nobody will know the difference).
Smoked salmon or a good Irish/Welsh blue cheese on Irish Soda bread, served in bite sized pieces.
Champ is yummy- mashed potatoes mixed with chopped scallions and lots of butter. Colcannon is mashed potatoes with cabbage and bacon pieces stirred through it.
Irish stew- made with lamb, potatoes, carrots and onions, very simple, could be served in ramekins with soda bread.
Can you get Tayto cheese and onion crisps?
There is an Irish version of a latke- Boxty maybe you could try something like that?
For something sweet, you could try making a barm brack or tea bread…it’s a sort of cross between fruit cake and bread, served with butter. It’s very good.
I’m sure the OP would have been happy to have bought Tayto back in 2006 when this thread was started!
Wonder how the party went anyway.
While these are all grand ideas for the party, I’m going to nominate **Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains! ** It is a zombie thread after all. 
Holy crap! I think this is a first for me. I mean, I’ve pulled some boneheaded stunts before, but posting a link to an old thread in that very same old thread…
I feel shame.
There there. Drink your Guinness and you’ll feel better. 
Now, listen, pal - I take no grief about Haggis from anyone who has ever eaten a hot dog and liked it! 
At least the Scots version was organic…
Haggis Biryani is a lovely South Asian variation on Scots cuisine…
Here’s a thread where someone did exactly the same thing.
Haggis isn’t bad. It’s not the nasty bits that worry me, but some chili peppers would help quite a bit, IMHO.
Thanks jjim, the dork in that thread makes me feel a little better.