Brad takes the sword to haggis on Burns Night

Celebrating Scotland with poetry, history, music, and culinary adventures

Last week, at the encouragement of history-loving friends, Brad and I hosted a Burns Night Supper, a celebration of Scottish culture honoring that country’s great poet, Robert Burns. Events, proscribed by tradition, included poetry and a history lecture, plenty of scotch and music, and the night’s signature element, the haggis.

Haggis has only appeared on my plate once before, at a Burns party in Andover. For those not in the know, haggis is a savory pudding made of sheep, “everything but the squeak,” stuffed into its stomach. Last time I met haggis, I was a less adventurous eater. This time, I found it delicious.

We ordered through the mail. Though we hoped for a single 5-pound haggis, we ended up with a pair of 2 pounders. The packaging specified the ingredients more clearly: lamb, oat meal, water, beef liver, onion, salt, celery salt, white pepper, red hot pepper, and spices.

Warmed in the Aga cooker, the haggises, looking plump and roly-poly in their silver serving dishes, were delivered to the table accompanied by a bagpiper. Brad used his father’s sword, a relic of his long and distinguished career as a Naval officer and pilot, to carve. Before the carving, though, we went round the table, each reading a stanza of Burns’s famous Ode to a Haggis.

The haggis was improved by a dash of whiskey cream sauce. The sauce turned up in my research for the evening, and was tasty, too, on the neaps and tatties, or mashed potato and rutabaga. Also appearing on the table were Scotch broth, black pudding, salmon, shortbread, and raspberry cranachan—all dishes with Scottish roots. Friends brought a delightful smoked bluefish spread, made from fish caught and smoked at their own hands, and what could be more Scottish than that?

I insisted on putting out a salad, noting a lack of green on the menu. Milligan, my guide in hosting this feast, advised me to skip the salad, relating that he lived in Scotland for a year and never once ate a vegetable. I should have heeded his advice.

Our Burns Night was packed with beautiful moments. A short, Scottish grace. The singing of folk songs. The bagpiper descending the stairs. Words delivered on the esteem Abraham Lincoln held for Robert Burns, and the love the Scottish people returned to that great Republican.

For me, high point of the evening occurred at the table, with Brad at one end, me at the other, and a dozen friends clad in tartan finery between us. Every voice joins in singing Auld Lang Syne, while the bagpiper plays in the hall. The volume of the pipes is more suited to the battlefield than in the dining room.

We hold printed lyrics for many verses, although the tune and the chorus is well known to us all. Because he can’t hear where we are, the piper stops at the end of a verse. Our group, made up of great friends old and new, shoulders on with the refrain, a cappella. The words of the refrain, for Auld Lang Syne, doesn’t translate directly to English. It is a nostalgic toast to good friends and good times.

When we finish, the piper picks up and plays the refrain through once again. A fire blazes in the fireplace. Silver and crystal glimmer on the table. And I am filled with affection for these friends and the joy we share in celebrating together.