Isn't it strange - countries all around the world that will be celebrating New Year’s Eve tomorrow night centre some of their celebrations on food, whereas the English have no special dish that heralds in the New Year?

Brazilians eat lentils, as they believe they signify wealth. Austrians roast a suckling pig. The people of Peru eat 13 grapes at the turn of the year, while the Spanish eat just 12 of them, one for every month of the forthcoming year, as do the Portuguese. In Greece, a special New Year’s bread is baked with a coin buried in the dough. They believe that if the coin is found in the third slice, then spring will come early. An old Sicilian tradition dictates that those eating lasagne on New Year’s Day will be lucky, and the Norwegians bake a rice pudding in which a whole almond is placed, bringing wealth to the person whose serving contains it.

Closer to home, north of the border, it’s the haggis that dominates the table, just as it does on Burns Night, which takes place later in the month — on January 25.

No race celebrates the New Year with more enthusiasm than the Scots who often continue the festivities, which they name Hogmanay, through to January 2. Indeed, until the 1950s, Hogmanay was Scotland’s major celebration of the winter season and Christmas was virtually ignored.

Hogmanay is a ceremony that can be traced right back to the pagan practices of sun and fire worship in midwinter. It is thought to combine both the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which called for loads of food and wine, and the Viking’s Yuletide celebrations that began on the shortest day.

The origins of the haggis are obscure. It was well documented from the 18th century, however, thanks to Boswell and Johnson, who ate it frequently during their travels, and Robert Burns, who celebrated it with an ode. Even Queen Victoria is said to have tried it, and apparently liked it very much.

The late food writer Alan Davidson, who complied the Oxford Companion to Food (Oxford University Press, £40), states that the Ancient Romans were the first people to produce a haggis-type dish, but in the absence of written records there is no way of knowing if the haggis is an adaptation of a Roman recipe.

He describes it as the archetype of a group of dishes based on preservation that have an ancient history and a wide distribution. What is known is that the haggis was once a popular dish for the poor as it was made from parts of a sheep that would otherwise be thrown away. It’s contents would include sheep’s heart and lungs which would have been mixed with beef and lamb trimmings and oatmeal, then sewn into a sheep’s stomach and boiled for at least three hours. It was Robert Burns who elevated its status by describing it as “the great chieftain o’the pudding race”. Traditionally the haggis is served with mashed neeps (Swedes), mashed potato and a wee dram of whisky.

There was a time when every Scottish household made its own haggis, but now it is widely available in butchers and supermarkets and sold all over the world. The cheaper brands are often packed in artificial casings and made mostly from pork, though you can still buy the genuine article if you seek it out. Your family butcher or the butchers in The Covered Market, Oxford, are good places to start. Since the 1960s, various manufacturers have also created a vegetarian haggis for those who don’t like meat and offal, which is made mostly from pulse foods and vegetables.

The whisky to toast the haggis certainly plays a large part in Hogmanay celebrations. No party would be complete without a glass or two of single malt such as Glenfarclas, which is as renowned for its traditional full-bodied flavour as the haggis is.

Those staging a traditional Hogmanay party tomorrow can now turn it into a whisky tasting by giving guests a chance to sip whisky that is now made all over the world. Since the 1990s, there has been an explosion in world production of whisky, with almost every continent except Antarctica making its own.

The interest in tastings has been generated in part by The Whisky Tasting Club (www.thewhiskytastingclub.co.uk) which has put together a tasting pack of whiskies from around the world, including a whisky created by The English Whisky Company set up in rural Norfolk in 2006. It is the first legal English distillery to produce spirits in 100 years.

Regardless of what you drink to see the New Year in, if you go down the Hogmanay route do not forget to organise a first footing ceremony, which calls for a dark stranger to cross the threshold once the clock has struck 12. Happy New Year to you all.