In honour of my Scottish roots I thought about making a Burns Supper tonight for dinner (haggis, neeps and tatties) but due to the lack of haggises in Illinois (there are no mountains for them to run around), and my unwillingness to pay $10 plus delivery for a tin of haggis from Amazon, we’re having lasagna instead.
True fact: Haggis only run round the mountainside in an anti-clockwise direction, therefore they have 2 legs on one side shorter than the other two. That’s how you catch them. Chase them clockwise round the mountain and they fall off. It’s a well known fact in Scotland. Ask The Google. Ignore the Wiki answer though and read the others. YW.
So the traditional Rabbie Burns poem that we read tonight is called ‘To a Haggis‘ but I’ve made my own version called ‘To a Lasagna‘….
Fair fa’ yer honest sonsie face,
Great Chieftain o’ the pasta race.’
That’s as far as I got. It’s a work in progress.
Tomatoes. Absolutely nothing to do with Burns Night, haggis or even lasagna (except it’s an ingredient) but I didn’t have a photograph to match the blog post.
Anyway enjoy some traditional Scottish music brought into the 21st Century by Paolo Nutini.
Alba1047 
In my childhood home in suburban Detroit, Burns Night was the big social event of the year. My mother (nee Armstrong) made a big deal of it, including hiring a piper to pipe in the haggis. As a naive youth, I even sampled haggis once. To change poets: Nevermore!
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Didn’t you like the haggis? I really like it (as long as I don’t think about the ingredients!)
Back home in Scotland Burns Night was bigger than St. Andrew’s Day. Nowhere near as big as St. Patrick’s Day though.
I’m glad you are proud of your Scottish heritage. 🙂
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Not a haggis fan. Steak pie, mashed turnips OK. And the Scottish pastries! Yum. Plus, I once got to say, “Piper, here’s your dram.” Bonus.
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Yum, agree!
Lol, the ultimate goal in life 😁
Btw, aren’t bagpipes SO loud when you’re up close and personal with them? 😉
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My uncle had a joke that in Scotland a gentleman is someone who can play bagpipes, but doesn’t. They definitely are loud and piercing up close. I really liked seeing the massed pipe bands at the Edinburgh Tatoo when I visited, though. The ultimate martial instrument!
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That’s something that’s on my bucket list. I’m ashamed to say I know more Americans who have been to the Tattoo than Scots. One day I’ll get there 🙂
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Edinburgh castle is a great place to watch a sunset!
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In honour of the great poet we had haggis curry tonight!
I’ve been haggis hunting too….!
Dookes
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I’ve never tried haggis curry. I have tried it deep fried though (yep, Scots deep fry everything!) 😉
Did you catch any?
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I’ve had deep fried haggis, in Aberdeen if I remember right.
The curry was a bit of a cheat; basically a green pepper, tomato and pea curry with slices of crispy pan fried haggis on top. Lovely!
The hunt? Well we went for the urban ones, found them living near a fella named MacSween, in Edinburgh! 😂😂😂
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That sounds delicious!
Haha, I thought you’d actually been for real.
One time my school wrote to ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ and a TV crew came up to film them hunting haggis around Loudoun Hill but it was never televised!
That was when he was a good guy of course. 😦
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It was!
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Alba lassie speak foreign to me.
Regarding your poem – I read rasta paste… that should be an interesting collaboration Scottish Rasta’s eating Jamaican Haggis and Scottish rum.
I would have loved chasing the Haggis in a clockwise fashion but unfortunately my left leg is shorter than my right and I would fall off… (this is a true fact)
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My son was born on January 25th (like 35 years ago…) and I had no idea until about 9 years ago that that was Robert Burns night. We’d probably have named him Robert. Okay, no we wouldn’t have…
It wasn’t until we started hanging around an errant Scotsman from Glasgow and his compatriots, and started going to the Stone Mountain Highland Games that we heard about Rabbie Burns Night. But not being of Scottish heritage (not my choice – I want a tartan!) we were not invited to any of the celebrations…
In 1981, Hubs and I went to Scotland and had haggis on a potato (from a place called McTatties – I kid you not!!) I don’t think I’ve had haggis since, but I like the word. And I DO like neeps and tatties! (which spell check wants to change to jeeps and tattoos)
And for the record, I went to THE Tattoo in 2007.
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Haha, you make me laugh AGMA 🙂
You can be an honourary Scot. You have tried haggis, have been to Scotland and have Scottish friends so we will adopt you into our clan.
You DO have to start using more ‘U’s’ in your spelling though 😁
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