Burn's Night Festivities

Yesterday was my first Burn's Night experience. Burn's Night is an evening of Haggis, whiskey in honor of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns. There are specific traditions incorporated in this evening, including the Burn's supper of which I took part yesternight at Bara's house. The traditional order of the evening as I understand it is as follows:

Welcome of the Host

The Selkirk Grace
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it.
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Entrance of the haggis

Usually accompanied by some bagpipe music, kind of like a little parade for the main course and then there is the address to the Haggis (following) after which the Haggis is stabbed in front of the company gathered.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the puddin-race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy o' a grace As lang's my arm.	(sonsie = cheeky) (aboon = above) (painch = stomach, thairm = intestin
The groaning trencher there ye fill, Your hurdies like a distant hill, Your pin wad help to mend a mill In time o' need, While thro' your pores the dews distil Like amber bead.	(hurdies = hips)
His knife see rustic Labour dicht, An' cut you up wi' ready slicht, Trenching your gushing entrails bricht, Like ony ditch; And then, O what a glorious sicht, Warm-reekin, rich!	(dicht = wipe, here with the idea of sharpening) (slicht = skill) (reeking = steaming)
Then, horn for horn, they stretch an' strive: Deil tak the hindmaist! on they drive, Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve, Are bent like drums; Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive, "Bethankit" hums.	(deil = devil) (swall'd=swollen, kytes = bellies, belyve = soon) (rive = tear, ie burst)
Is there that o're his French ragout Or olio that wad staw a sow, Or fricassee wad mak her spew Wi' perfect scunner, Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view On sic a dinner?	(olio = olive oil, staw = make sick) (scunner = repugnance)
Poor devil! see him ower his trash, As feckless as a wither'd rash, His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash, His nieve a nit; Thro' bloody flood or field to dash, O how unfit!	(nieve = fist, nit = louse's egg, ie. tiny)
But mark the Rustic, haggis fed, The trembling earth resounds his tread. Clap in his wallie nieve a blade, He'll mak it whistle; An' legs an' arms, an' heads will sned, Like taps o' thristle.	(wallie = mighty, nieve = fist) (sned = cut off) (thristle = thistle)
Ye Pow'rs wha mak mankind your care, And dish them out their bill o' fare, Auld Scotland wants nae skinkin ware That jaups in luggies; But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer, Gie her a haggis!	(skinkin ware = watery soup) (jaups = slops about, luggies = two-handled continental bowls)

Supper

After giving the Haggis its proper due, a meal is enjoyed. Traditionally, the Haggis is served with tatties and neeps. For a more detailed account of my first experience with Haggis, please see take a look at my next blog. :o)

After the meal there are a series of speeches shared in a specific order. I think that the BBC does a great couple of videos for the example of the speech 'Toast to the Lassies' and speech 'Response to the speech of the Lassies' at the following link. Robert Burns BBC

Our lovely hosts for the evening prepared a big screen experience of a video of Robert Burns, however the dinner conversation carried on so delightfully that before we knew it, it was time to depart. We will have to save the video for another day. However, before I part away from this blog I will tip my hat to another tradition of Burn's Night which is to read some of Robert Burn's poetry. Perhaps this is one with which you may be familiar:

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
O my Luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!

Because my first experience with Haggis deserves a seperate blog entry

Traditional Scottish fair on Burn's night includes Haggis. Haggis, according to the Oxford English Dictionary is:
A dish consisting of the heart, lungs, and liver of a sheep, calf, etc. (or sometimes of the tripe and chitterlings), minced with suet and oatmeal, seasoned with salt, pepper, onions, etc., and boiled like a large sausage in the maw of the animal.

Don't let anyone tell you those Scots don't know how to party! eh? eh? I mean you would have to be quite drunk to dream up this combination (Although to be fair, there are many traditional foods around the world that seem as if they were created on a dare... lutefisk anyone?) Whatever the history of Haggis, I am glad that it was created. For Burns Night, Bara and Jim prepared a meat as well as a vegetarian Haggis. Not too much of a stretch to make it vegetarian, it already has oats and onions in it. Jim says that the consistency of the vegetarian one is very similar to the meat variety. I did not try the meaty Haggis, but the vegetarian one was delicious!

I think equal to my enjoyment of eating the Haggis was watching it being prepared. Quite interesting. I tried to look up for my blog land readers a detailed description of how the Haggis is cooked, but I kept finding ways in which to actually make it from scratch...hmm..including directions such as, 'wash the hearts lung and liver' and 'spoon the mixture inside the sheeps stomach.' After a few minutes of accidentally reading these recipes (when really I just wanted to make sure I was accurate on the cooking of it portion) I am a bit nauseated. SO! I will interpret what I witnessed in the preparation using my detailed memory, cultural biases, wild (most likely inaccurate) interpretations and of course... photos. Begin:

First step I was not able to capture in a photo, but involves driving around to many stores in order to find Haggis because we do not live so near to the Scottish border as to make it too readily accessible. Thanks again guys for your tireless efforts in hunting down our Haggis!

Second step is to take the haggis, wrap it and foil and boil the hell out of it for a long time. hours.

After the Haggis is all boiled, you stab it like you were in a pub fight, or at the end of a great hunt! rarr!

After the stabbing bit, the Haggis explodes (see video below!!) and oozes out of stomach lining (or whatever casing it may be.) This is a tricky step, artfully managed by Jim, where the steaming hot innards of the haggis are squished out of their casing into a bowl for everyone to enjoy.

Equally important, but I believe not an official step is to make sure that the cat does not get to the main course before we do. Down kitty. Well, that is basically how it is prepared, but equally important on Burn's night is the way it is presented. Please see Burn's Night entry for the details. :o)

Wandering around Wales-Llangollen

After submitting two massive essays, I fled from Leeds to enjoy more of the English countryside. Taking a break from most academic work as well as my blog. I drove with Tim down to Chester and after mentally resting for a few days we went on a lovely walk around a tiny place in Wales called Llangollen. It is strange to see Welsh written everywhere, and I tried this treat called a Welsh cake that was delicious! We had good luck with the weather and walked along the canal periodically stopping to watch the ducks dip in the water. I love it when they do that completely upside down thing, it is just hilarious. We managed to walk over to a really lovely Abbey, Valle Crucis Abbey founded in 1201. I am amazed at the way in which the United Kingdom is littered with historic old sites. They are so saturated with these beautiful old sites, that this Abbey is actually bordered by quite a large trailer park. Which is kind of amusing to me. Old beautiful ruins, trailer park, sheep, did I mention a few rope swings as well? Yup. All in a days walk.

My mother is a Christmas cookie genius

This is the reason for the season. Every year my mom whips up some of the most tasty cookies for the holiday season. As I was snowed into my parents house for the first week of my holiday break, I had plenty of time to sample the festive Christmas goodies... YUM!!! The cookies that you do not see featured on this plate are called Peanut Butter Kisses... they are my favorite; which may explain why... by the time I got around to taking this photo... they were gone :o) But I have included the recipe following for anyone who feels adventurous. They are not the healthiest item on which to nibble... but hey! It is Christmas!

Peanut butter kiss cookies

1 c. butter
2/3 c. creamy peanut butter
1 c. granular sugar
1 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 2/3 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
16 oz. pkg. chocolate kiss candy

Combine butter, peanut butter and sugars; blend until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; blend. Mix flour, salt and soda, add to cream mixture; stir well. Roll dough into quarter size balls. Roll ball in bowl of sugar. Bake dough at 350 degrees for 8 minutes, take out, place chocolate kiss in center of each cookie. Bake an additional 2 minutes.