Crappit Heid

In the Highland fishing communities of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was common to eat every part of the fish. The expensive fillets of large fish like haddock and cod would be sold at the market but the fishermen and their families would often eat the heads and offal in a dish called Crappit Heid. The old Scots word ‘crap’ means to ‘stuff’ and this popular dish was simply a stuffed fish head, a ‘heid’. The fish liver was combined with oatmeal, onions and suet to form a stuffing that was pushed inside the head, which had to be sewn closed before boiling it in seawater. The bones of the head would also add to the flavour of the dish.