BURNS SUPPER!

A few weeks ago I got my first real taste of Scottish culture and..ahem..retch...haggis! Um...yes, I did!

On January 25th Scotland holds this dinner festival called the Burns Supper in celebration of a man named Robert Burns. I guess you could say he was like the Scottish Shakespeare. He is known as, "Scotland's favourite son", the "Ploughman Poet", the "Bard of Ayrshire" and/or simply, just the "Bard". In fact I am certain you have heard at least one of his poems, it goes like this, "Should auld acquaintance be forgot,and never brought to mind ? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?" WHAT?!? What is that? It sounds familiar but...what?! That's right he wrote that song that everyone sings at New Years but no one really knows the words or else you make them up...yep, that's the one. Anyway, now that you are all nodding your head in realization and saying, "OH...." you can understand who Robert Burns was.

So, our ward put together a nice Burns celebration and Mike and I bought our tickets and were planning to go. Unfortunately, we were not supposed to take Andrew (no kids allowed, this is a serious supper!) and due to a long story our sitter fell threw. Well, Mike being the nice and awesome husband that he is said he would stay home with Andrew so that I could go (at this point due to the weather I had been stuck in the flat for about three days straight and he recognized I needed to get out) so I called my friend Camille, whose husband was also staying home with he kids, and we went together.

We were ready! All dressed up in our tartan (plaid skirts). When we walked in it was super cool! There was a bagpiper playing and all the men wore their kilts and there was tartan all over the walls and it just felt so...Scottish, it was fun! We took a seat and got ready for the celebration. There were some lovely songs, some Scottish dancing, lots of bagpipes, and then the food. 90% of the food was great! It started with some Scottish broth which was basically chicken stock soup with vegetables, very good, and then it went into the main even...gulp...we knew it was coming...the haggis.

Quick refresher--Haggis contains sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally simmered in a sheep's stomach for approximately three hours.

It was the poor mans meal and it really is a staple in Scottish history and culture, therefore I knew I was going to have to try it, based on principle. If I'm going to live in Scotland, I need to try haggis. So, when it was coming I prepared myself. And when it came out it was, well...quite and event!!!

First of all a bagpiper plays the haggis song and marches around the whole room while the chef carries the haggis behind and they proceed to deliver it to the honored guests seated at the front of the room. (Meanwhile we all stare in awe at the wonderful haggis) The person at the head of the table then does this reading TO the haggis all said in Scottish and, sadly, I couldn't understand a word except for, 'delicious', haggis' and 'knife' (pronounced 'neef') which the lady then waved around the stakes presidents head and then slashed the haggis open and put the stuff in her hands and smelled it. MMMMMMMMMMMM! After that then the bagpiper and the chef pick up where they left off and march it out to the kitchen to be served up.

I knew it was time. So when I was presented with my plate I decided to take no hesitations. Just dig in. I asked Camille if she was going to try (Camille is a fellow American) and she looked at me like I was crazy and replied, "no". Very well...so I picked up my fork and took a bite. (Bear in mind I was seated at a table with Scottish people, and I was so nervous I would offend them if I didn't like it). But no worries, one of the girls at the table confessed she hated it and made her husband eat hers so when I put that spicey bit of sheep stomach in my mouth and nearly wretched, no one cared! Honestly it wasn't the worst thing I have ever tasted, in fact if I didn't know what was in it, it wouldn't be too bad, but the texture...well you can tell what it is by the texture so that was enough for me.

After that Camille and I left to get back to our kids and had a little adventure getting out of the church parking lot. It had gotten so icy that her van couldn't make it up the little hill to get out. After multiple attempts and sliding back down the Elders came up and helped push us. THANK YOU ELDERS! It was actually kind of hard but my favorite part was when Camille asked one of the Elders if they could try driving it out and he responded, "We can't...it's against the rules, but we HAVE FAITH in you , sister!" Well, the faith worked and we did eventually get out of that ice pit.

I did manage to brings Mike some haggis. So when we got home he tried some. Let's just say his reaction was similar to mine. YUCK! But so fun that we finally got to experience such a great Scottish past time.

I loved the the culture, and the atmosphere and really everything about it except the haggis itself. I just wish everyone could experience it!!!

Scottish broth


Dancing


Bringing out the Haggis!!






Reading to the Haggis!


Here it is! YUMMO!!!