Tonight is Burns Night, when Scots and lovers of poetry and liberty pay tribute to Robert Burns (1759-96), bard of his own people and their language and a fierce believer in the brotherhood of all mankind.
If you’re quick about it, you may still be able to bag a wild haggis for your supper tonight; the hunt ends at 3 p.m. GMT. Or perhaps you’re busy scrubbing out your own sheep’s tripe or veal caul right now, preparing to stuff it with some processed haggis parts.
If you’ve been improvident enough to find yourself short of the traditional casings, though, we can help. The finished haggis is, after all, the “great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race” – he’s a savoury steamed pudding, in other words, when he’s not a sort of sausage, and you can whip up a very fine haggis in an old-fashioned pudding bowl.
The only meat in your most basic country haggis is the sheep’s pluck – the liver, lights (lungs), and heart put through a grinder – plus the suet, the fat surrounding the kidneys.
As you’ll see from Meg Dod’s historical recipe for Haggis Royal at the Auld Alliance link, however, by the nineteenth century even Scots were substituting ground mutton for the pluck, and tamer North Americans might want to think of ground lamb. But oh, go on – add a little finely chopped liver for the flavour.
You’ll want about three pounds of ground meat, plus some suet if you can find it, two pounds of steel-cut or pinhead (pinbead) oatmeal (not rolled oats), a couple of onions, chopped, and then follow Mrs Dod’s suggestions for spices, lemon zest, and wine. All great haggii are very peppery, and the mark of the Haggis Royal is those chopped anchovies. For a slightly less rich haggis, perhaps cut back on Mrs Dod’s egg yolks, and you can substitute two to three cups of beef stock for the wine (although why would you want to do that?).
Mix your meats and fats and spices first. Add your oatmeal (lightly toasted in the oven if you like), mix well, and then add the egg yolks if you like and a couple of cups of wine or stock. As soon as the mixture is holding together, you’ve added enough liquid. You don't want it too wet if you mean to unmould it, but you don't want it still crumbly either.
Prepare your kettle and pudding bowl by putting a trivet (or a steamer insert) in the bottom of a kettle large enough to hold your bowl with a 2-inch space all around, and grease the bowl. Fill the bowl with the haggis mixture no more than two-thirds full, and cover with waxed paper or foil securely closed and tied. Add boiling water to the kettle, less than halfway up the bowl, cover, and steam (keep the water on simmer) for about three hours, watching the level of the water. (Yes: depending on the size of your pudding bowl, you may have two haggii here.)
Some there are who like their haggis with a little whisky mayonnaise. Me, I like chutney with my haggis. There is a certain stodge factor in this supper, so the sweet bite of a slice of mango lightens things a bit, and besides it seems such a perfect complement to the pepper of the haggis.
Then, of course, you’ll want your neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes – we’re not talking Versailles here, and it is deepest winter in rural Scotland), and ideally a generous dish of syllabub to finish your supper off. Well: finish off – that would probably be better said of the wee drams of the modest single malt you’ll be sipping through the occasion.
Much as the evening is traditionally a tribute to the heroic puddin’ of the people, attended with skirling pipes and flourished daggers, no true lover of Burns ever forgets that the brotherhood of all mankind for Burns definitely included the lasses, oh:
For you so grave you sneer at this
You're no but senseless asses oh
The wisest man the world e'er saw
Dearly loved the lassies oh
Green grow the rashes oh
Green grow the rashes oh
The sweetest hours that e're I spent
Were spent among the lassies oh
Some of the saddest hours too, of course. In one short stanza of “Ae Fond Kiss” Burns wrote as simply and purely of the pain of lost love as seems possible:
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never kissed or never parted
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
So here’s to the wily haggis and to all the lads and lasses who address him tonight, and here’s to the bard who honoured him and us all. To the immortal memory!
Is there for honest poverty
That hings his heed, an a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by -
We dare be poor for a that!
For a' that, an a' that!
Our toils obscure, an a' that,
The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.
...
Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that),
That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree an a' that.
For a' that, an a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That man to man, the world, o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that.
– “A Man’s a Man for A’ That (1795)
You knew it was coming. ;)
Ode Tae a Fart
Oh what a sleekit horrible beastie,
Lurks in yer bellie efter a feastie,
Just as ye sit doon among yer kin
There starts to stir an enormous wind.
The neeps and tatties and mushy peas
Start working like a gentle breeze
But soon the pudding wi' the sauncie face
Will hae ye blawin' a' ower the place
Nae matter whit the hell ye dae
A'body's gonnae hae tae pay
Even if ye try tae stifle
it's like a bullet oot a rifle
Hawd yer bum ticht tae the chair
Tae try tae stop the leakin' air
Shift yersel fae cheek tae cheek
Pray tae god it disnae reek
But a' the efforts go asunder
Oot it comes like a clap o' thunder
Ricochets arrond the room
Michty me! a sonic boom
God almighty it fairly reeks
A' hope a' huvnae shit ma breeks
Tae the bog a' better scurry
Whit the hell, it's no ma worry
A'body roon aboot me choakin'
One or two are nearly boakin'
I'll feel better for a while
Cannae help but raise a smile
It wis him! I shout and glower
Alas too late, he's just keeled ower
Ye dirty bugger! They shout and stare
I'm no that welcome any mair
Where e're ye go let yer wind gang free
That sounds jist the joab fir me
Whit a fuss at Rabbie's party
Ower the sake o' one wee farty
You can get your haggis supplies here.
As Burns' work attests, some of the best poetry has come out of Scotland, skdadl.
(I'm a Robert Henryson fan myself.)
That said, the Scots and their admirers must also own William Topaz McGonagall, the bard of the 'silv'ry Tay.'
Tonight, I'll be raising a glass to both the sublime Burns, and the sublimely awful McGonagall.
Och aye, an' the Scottish topics always bring out the inner comedian in each of us, no? ;-)
Anyone who clicks through on Melanie's link should be sure to check out the "haggis hurling," eg. Those are some really splendid-looking haggii, Melanie, but it appears that the McKeans haven't organized delivery to Canada yet, although they have a U.S. link. Look at those venison haggii, for instance -- if I could, I would order one of those. And the clootie dumpling -- yum.
There are a couple of Toronto butchers who've been doing good haggis for many years, although it has been a while since I ordered one and I'd have to do some checking back to find the names. The first year I called one I was amused to find myself listening to a pure Liverpool accent -- could've been George Harrison himself I was talking to. At one point he told me he'd come to Canada in 1962, just a year or so too soon to have all the girls swooning at the sound of his Scouse accent. I dunno: it still worked on me. ;-)
Och, McGonagall, who "will be remember'd for a very long time," as he wrote of the Tay Bridge disaster, as a different sort of disaster himself.
But come now, Stephen -- if the Scots must own McGonagall, Canadians have to own up to James McIntyre and his "Ode on the Mammoth Cheese":
We have seen thee, queen of cheese,
Lying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.
All gaily dressed soon you'll go
To the great Provincial show,
To be admired by many a beau
In the city of Toronto.
Cows numerous as a swarm of bees,
Or as the leaves upon the trees
It did require to make thee please,
And stand unrivalled, queen of cheese.
May you not receive a scar as
We have heard that Mr. Harris
Intends to send you off as far as
The great world's show at Paris.
Of the youth beware of these,
For some of them might rudely squeeze
And bite your cheek, then songs or glees
We could not sing, oh! queen of cheese.
We'rt thou suspended from balloon,
You'd cast a shade even at noon,
Folks would think it was the moon
About to fall and crush them soon.
So I had some haggis yesterday.
. . .
Man! It was awesome! Somewhere between steak and kidney puddin' and a spicy liver pate. I was surprised.
A convert! We have another convert! *grin*
Converts are the best. They become the true zealots.
The first time I had haggis, it reminded me of stuffing, which is why I thought of adding the chutney -- sort of a savoury version of cranberry sauce. Come to think of it, cranberry sauce would probably also be quite good with haggis.
Ah yes, 'The Great McGonagle!'
Hi, macadavy! How's tricks?
That is priceless. I joined just so I could vote it up. And I must take O Carthaigh over to balbulican at stageleft, who blogged McGonagall too on the morning after. His reaction to McIntyre's poem was that it sounded very like ... Vogon. *grin*