January is a bleak month in Scotland. There is very little daylight, with the sun only half-heartedly glancing at Scotland from around 8 am to 3pm. The weather doesn’t help. It is mostly rainy and drizzly, most of the time (Yes, two ‘mosts’. It’s a sentiment that requires it). Dreich days as the Scots would say. It isn’t particularly cold, but at the same time it is the worst cold I have ever experienced. So, it is no surprise that January 25th, the national celebration of Scottish poet Robbie Burns’ birth is met with great relief by Scottish people across the country. Here is an opportunity to cozy up to a fire, eat warming traditional Scottish food, drink good whiskey, sing songs, play music, recite poetry, and essentially let the frost that has settled on your bones thaw for a while.
Though Robbie Burns Nights happen worldwide and wherever Scottish people have settled (which is really everywhere – intrepid Scots!), this was my first Robbie Burns celebration and I felt very excited to be celebrating it right here in Scotland – The motherland.
Always wanting to contribute, I offered yet again to make haggis from scratch. This was met with silence and a rather pained looking eye twitch from Finlay (my Scottish host). So, I let pass another haggis making opportunity for the sake of my relationship with my hosts, and opted instead to make Cranachan, a traditional Scottish dessert made with cream, whiskey, toasted oats and fresh fruit (traditionally raspberries). This also seemed like a good opportunity to learn to make Meringues, a distinctly more prevalent dessert in these parts, and something I had been wanting to learn how to make. Finlay and Kirsten agreed with this plan wholeheartedly.
The menu at a Burns Supper is pretty straight forward and given no one in Scotland actually makes haggis themselves anymore, a pretty easy meal to prepare. There is the haggis, of course, which is a kind of jumbo-sized sausage made from the offal (innards) of a sheep, oatmeal, and pepper. This is served with neeps and tatties (or mashed turnip and potatoes), and all of it is followed by a traditional Scottish dessert, most often Cranachan, and lots of good single malt whiskey.
Besides the food, which is very traditional, The Burns Supper is perhaps the most Scottish event of the year. It is filled with singing, music, and poetry and it celebrates the life of a man who himself embodies the self-made, from lowly beginnings to fame and wealth character, which is so very Scottish (think: Carnegie, Alexander Mackenzie ,David Livingstone, Billy Conolly…). Robbie Burns was a ploughboy born in a two-room thatched cottage that his father had built. A family that, like many Scottish families, valued education above almost anything else, Burns’ father worked hard to provide his sons with their own tutor. An avid reader, much of Burns’ education, would later come through his own reading. Burns went on to great fame and fortune through the publication of his poetry. His most famous poems include: Auld Lang Syne; Tam O’ Shanter; and A Red, Red Rose.
The Burns Supper at Northfield House did not disappoint. After a glass of champagne by the fire in the drawing-room, the 18 other guests and I were escorted to the dining room where a long table was set with porcelain, glass, and silver, all shimmering in candlelight. After we were seated, next on the night’s agenda was The Presentation of the Haggis. It inspired awe and child-like excitement around the room, as the haggis was traditionally piped in, and rather untraditionally topped with two roman candles spurting light into the room. Before we all dug in, the haggis was well and truly honoured by Finlay’s dramatic and energetic (verging on manic but in a good way) recitation of the Address to A Haggis. Red wine and heaping spoonfuls of haggis, neeps and tatties, made the rounds amongst jovial, excited chatter. And my Cranachan and Meringues were a hit! Also for dessert we had another creamed, boozy pudding called Dean’s Cream, brought by another guest.
It is traditional that guests should perform at a Burns Supper. In my excitement to participate as fully as I could in the experience, I had decided I would take this opportunity to do my first public performance of a song on my ukulele. I chose the song, Lester the Lobster, a song that I felt was on one hand, a fun little song, representative of my family’s Prince Edward Island roots, a place predominantly settled by the Scottish and Irish, and on the other hand, only had three chords and an easy tune. Only a few hours before the dinner, however, I came to my sense and decided not to perform. THANK GOD, I came to my senses!
The performances at this Burns Supper were perfectly executed readings of poetry and prose that were either clever and witty, or breathtakingly beautiful. There were heartbreaking (and not the achy breaky kind) songs, some sung in Gaelic, and brilliant personal creations. Had I sung Lester the Lobster by Stevedore Steve, which would have been neither, clever, nor heartbreakingly beautiful, let alone perfectly performed, I fear I would have been left sitting there, red-faced and feeling like the bottom feeding crustacean the song is about.
Usually, deciding not to participate (which is frequent) leaves me feeling regretful and disappointed in myself. But, on this night, I felt very chuffed (a Scottish word for proud of oneself) about my wonderfully insightful decision. Stevedore Steve’s Lester the Lobster is a song that still holds a dear place in my heart, with memories of family bonfire sing-alongs on the beach in Prince Edward Island. It’s best not to tarnish these kind of memories by performing them badly internationally. Had I not had my eleventh-hour epiphany, it could have been one of those horrifically shame-filled nights that still make your stomach hurt when you recall them, like ten years later. Instead, it was a great, great night.
stookiehavers 