Twin Peaks star joins calls for US to end 45-year haggis ban

Kyle MacLachlan has called on America to end its ban of Scotland's beloved national dish.

The actor, who is reprising his role in the long-awaited third series of the cult 1990s TV show, has declared himself to be a firm advocate of Scotland’s national dish.

Despite once joining Mike Myers in a TV sketch featuring the Canadian comic’s infamous jest about most Scottish cuisine being “based on a dare”, MacLachlan is also keen to try the nation’s other, even more derided “delicacy” – the deep fried Mars bar.

Speaking ahead of his latest appearance at the prestigious Alfred Dunhill Links Championship this week pairing celebrities with world-class golfers in and around St Andrews, he said: “I’ve had haggis when I’ve been in Scotland and it’s pretty tasty.

“I would certainly eat it at home [if the ban is lifted], though not every day.

“I remember I thought Mike Myer’s line about most Scottish cuisine being based on a dare was very funny at the time, [but] I think food culture in Scotland now is coming on strong. It’s getting more interesting and it seems as though people are making more of what the environment provides.

“I know a deep-fried Mars bar won’t be good for you but, like anything fried, I think it will probably be tasty too. Maybe I’ll have one [during] this visit,” he added.

Now also known for more recent roles in hit TV series Sex in the City and Desperate Housewives, MacLachlan shot to fame in the 1990s after starring in David Lynch’s tale as a detective trying to solve a murder in a small US town.

Although sworn to secrecy on the storyline of the new series of Twin Peaks, he said working with Lynch again was “life-changing”.

MacLachlan, whose ancestors hailed from Loch Fyne, thinks Scotland would make an ideal setting for Twin Peaks, an idea mooted as an April Fool by the BBC in 1991 when the second series ended.

“I think there’s a lot of mystery in Scotland. I remember travelling there for the first time in the 80s to visit the clan lands. I rented a little car and went north from Glasgow and found an old castle and a graveyard filled with MacLachlans. There was something really moving about it.

“Scotland has a similar kind of desolate beauty that I think would lend itself to the mystery of Twin Peaks, without question,” he said.

Haggis was banned from the US in 1971 after officials deemed a key ingredient – sheep lung – harmful.

A spokesman for Macsween in Edinburgh welcomed MacLachlan’s support and said resuming exports should reduce the “fear factor”.