Burns Night Supper 2019
This year we hosted our first Burns Night Supper in honour of Scotland’s bard and poet Robert Burns. Some will insist on “Robbie” or “Rabbie” but as I’m only a quarter Scottish, I feel the need for formalities. I’m not fond of when people I’ve just met default to “Jenny” and so “Robert” it is. Burns Day or more commonly Burns Night is an annual celebration of the man and his work. The first Burns Supper was held in July 1801 when nine of Burns’ close friends gathered to mark the fifth anniversary of their fallen comrade’s death. They took turns reciting Burns’ work, ate well and raised glasses of whisky to his memory. Clearly it was good time as they repeated it the following year (this time on Burns’ birthday) and folks have been doing it ever since.
Why would a family living on an island in the PNW host a Burns celebration? It actually started with a hail Mary of a home learner project. As is my way, I was totally unprepared to start back up with the post-Christmas book learning. I find events or holidays make for an easy study focus. What is there to celebrate in January? Only the one of the most prolific poets of all time. AND there’s a party with ceremonial foods, songs, decorations and whatnot. My son Arvo and I do like to plan a party. And if we happen to learn a few poems, Scottish geography, foodlore and the history of a fascinating national hero along the way―so be it.
We started with reading the more accessible poems. “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” is a good one. It’s well-known, and it’s actually a song. So, we could read it and listen to the many recordings of it. “To a Mouse” is a captivating poem with a lot to dig into―the relationship between man and mouse, living life in the moment, regret, the industrial revolution―you know, light stuff like that.
We spent some time learning about Burns the man. His is a tragic and romantic tale of women, drink and politics that ended with his premature death at the age of 37, four days before the birth of his last son. It is believed he had a hand in making 12-14 humans born of several different women. The fact that this number can’t be verified to a numeral, is some indication of the bard’s virility. Burns’ sex life is often discussed with a nudge and a wink, but it’s worth thinking about the women he may have left in his wake. I can’t imagine it was much of a treat being the mother of illegitimate children or the wife dealing with all the dalliances. Burns was a larger than life character and a study in contrasts. A feminist, a hopeless womanizer; a tax collector and a political revolutionary. But that was long ago and no one really knows what went on in the hearts of women and men over 200 years ago. One thing I’m sure of is that he was a good poet and an interesting enough human to warrant a good party in his name.
On to the party bit. After a lot of research we decided to do a formal-ish Burns Supper. A formal supper follows a traditional run of show, complete with a piper, odes and toasts kept to a specific schedule. The BBC has a great rundown here. We live in a small space and I’m not made of money, so we made concessions. I’d like to tell you I didn’t lose my mind and spent weeks trying to find a piper. Turns out pipers are busy on Burns Night, they charge $200/hr and it’s actually crazy to try to get one to march around your tiny town home. Also, I was shut down by my more grounded, but less fun husband on this one. In retrospect, this was for the best. No matter. I found plenty of other ways to go overboard. On that note, I’m going to just tell you what we did now. If you’d like to throw your own party (and you should!), feel free to glean from my own gleaning and hard won lessons.
GUESTS
If you’re doing a formal, sit down dinner, count seats and measure tables. Me? I skipped this step. There were a few dark moments when I had to source another table and four more chairs once the invitations were sent. Don’t be like me. If you’d like to have more guests than table settings, you can take a modern approach and do it cocktail party style. Invite guests who will participate. This is a participatory event. You want folks who will don tartans, read poetry and/or sing. To this end, you’ll have to lead by example. We assigned poems to guests and sent them well in advance, allowing time for practice. However, if you and yours are a quiet bunch, you can skip the whole showboat aspect of Burns Night and have a nice enough time. Instead of performances, you can listen to other more interesting people than yourselves read. To each his own. Just invite people you like and who at the very least appreciate good food and poetry. I’m lazy and created a FB event page using the event banner image below, but real invitations would be awfully nice. One day.
MENU
Food
The traditional Burns Supper consists of a starter, main, dessert, cheese course, plus tea and coffee service. The starter is generally a soup―cullen skink or cock-a-leekie. The mains are haggis with neeps and tatties (swede & mashed potatoes) and the dessert is usually cranachan, clootie dumpling or a Tipsy Laird trifle. Follow up with a cheeseboard of Scottish cheeses and oatcakes with whisky and then coffee or more whisky or both. Of course, you can eat what you like. If haggis isn’t your thing, there are other options. We chose to serve haggis as a starter as we suspected a few of our guests wouldn’t have a big of an appetite for it. We picked up a small one from a local butcher and after the ceremonial shivving of the haggis (we’ll get to that), we served small scoops of haggis, neeps and tatties and skirlie with oatcakes and rowan jelly. Surprise takeaway: the boychild loves haggis. Our main was a hearty lamb stew served with crusty bread. And for dessert we did cranachan and homemade shortbread followed by a small selection of Scottish cheese. Note: the links I’m providing are the actual recipes we used. Also, skirlie is my new favourite thing. We printed out menus/programs that we placed at each guest’s seat. You can see/steal the pdf here.
Drink
Whisky features heavily on Burns Night. It’s nice to have a few options on hand or ask your guests to bring a bottle they’d like to share. If you’re not a true whisky lover, consider serving a signature whisky cocktail like an Old Fashioned or even a Hot Toddy. Scottish gins are exceptional and then there’s Scottish ales or Crabbies ginger beer. We’re a wine drinking group, so we had bottles of red on hand and served whisky for the Toast to the Haggis. In short, traditionally this is a drinking event. However, just because Burns spent a great deal of time pickled (a habit that likely hastened his untimely death), doesn’t mean you have to. Consider serving sparkling water with a raspberry simple syrup. Or there’s a new botanical non-alcoholic spirit that’s being distilled in Scotland called Feragaia. I haven’t tried it and I don’t know if it’s available in Canada, but I’m intrigued. If I track some down, I’ll report back.
DRESS
I’ll keep this bit short because this is so much a matter of personal choice and who says you’re going to care what I did? See, I LOVE to dress up for occasions. My son and daughter also like a good costume in life. My friends and my husband…do not. And so it goes. If you do have good sports in your life, you can offer guests a little direction in the invitation. For formal Burns Suppers, the dress code is obviously formal. Meaning, black tie or traditional Highland dress is appropriate. Those without (gasp) a Prince Charlie jacket and sporran or full-length satin tartan skirt, can wear evening attire with tartan accessories (scarves, clan badges, etc.) We asked our guests to show up with at least a touch of tartan and for the most part, folks complied. I scored a long satin Black Watch tartan skirt from a thrift shop and jerry-rigged a matching scarf into a sash complete with a blingy rosette via this helpful tutorial. I also forced my husband into a very cool Canadian tartan wool tie. Arvo wore a kilt generously gifted to him by one of our friends. His knobby little boy legs nearly broke my heart in all the right ways. I wish I’d managed to snap shots of my husband and our guests. Sigh. Trust me, they all looked smashing.
DECOR
For a sit-down formal meal, you’ll want to pay attention to how you dress your table. How you do that is between you and your gods. Some like a hodgepodge of stoneware whilst others may prefer matching china. Because we were wedging four tables into our living room and dining room, I opted for tablecloths to pull it all together. In a perfect world, I’d have several identical, rustic wooden tables or one giant one…in a large heritage home…in the countryside. As, I’m a compulsive thrifter with a weakness for linens, I own dozens of tablecloths including a 10-foot cream one that came in handy. And thanks to my wedding way back in 2016, I own 54 cloth napkins. For inspiration, I turned to Jennifer of guildencrantz. A) she’s a Jennifer and B) she’s a good writer, with great taste and C) she throws beautiful parties. Seriously, peruse her posts of Burns Suppers past and present. When I said I turned to her for inspiration, I do mean that I directly pinched and poached many of her ideas.
Seeing as Burns was a lover of the natural world, greenery is important Plus, if you gather it yourself, it will be the most affordable, high impact decor move you can make. I brought in ivy, loads of blooming heather, rosemary and holly. These grow plentifully around me and I was able to nick a good amount without negatively impacting any of the plants. I made two heather wreaths and hung them from tartan satin ribbons in the dining room. Each napkin was rolled and tied with a sprig of heather, as well. I heaped the greenery down the centre of the table along with a mix of candle sticks and low profile lanterns. Despite the lame photos, the result was really quite lovely. I vow to get better shots of everything next time.
READINGS/TOASTS/PERFORMANCES
Our friends aren’t exactly the performing types, and yet we forced them to read poetry. They were paid handsomely in food and drink and received their assigned poems weeks before the supper. So they wouldn’t have to remember to bring anything, I printed out each poem and rolled them into scrolls sealed with Burns stickers ordered here. Each guest also had a collection of Burns poetry at their seat in case they preferred to read from a book. I found a whole row of copies at my favourite secondhand bookshop and I snapped them up. It only cost $42 and that seemed reasonable for 14 books that doubled as take home gifts. With all bases covered, no one was getting out of reading!
We asked folks to show up on time and once everyone arrived on our front porch we piped them in with a recorded version of “The Star of Robby Burns. This was unexpected, weird and rather amusing to watch as our friends marched to the table. I’m pretty sure we freaked them out a bit. In a good way. I think. We welcomed everyone and invited them take a seat. Drinks were poured and then we Skyped in Roddy, our dear (and other Scottish) friend from Cambodia to do the “Address to the Haggis”. He’s a very funny guy and did a brilliant job of it. Arvo relished his role as haggis stabber and waited eagerly for his cue to cut into the great chieftain o' the pudding-race:
“His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!”
The address ended with a jolly toast to the haggis. Arvo delivered the Selkirk Grace and we got to eating. Between the starters and the main, we played a little Burns trivia in lieu of the “Immortal Memory”. I printed and cut out these Burns factoids and placed one under each guest’s plate. It was an educational good time listening to everyone read out their bits of trivia. Up next came the “Toast to the Lassies” and “The Reply”. I will say The Reply delivered by our friend Connie, killed. She had everyone rolling in their haggis. She’s an actor and hilarious, and so the menfolk never really stood a chance. I’ve already made her promise to do it again next year, so the lads have plenty of time to step it up. And before we knew it, the stew was on the table. The rest of the evening rolled along merrily in a haze of poetry, music, food and drink. Our last poem was read by our friend and neighbour who was born and raised in Scotland. Her rendition of “My Heart is in the Highlands” recited with her daughter and grandson sitting near had us crying in our cups. But we quickly cheered up over Cranachan and shortbread and a dram or three. No point in staying melancholy, not when there’s overindulging to be done. The hours flew by and I was grateful for our decent chair cushions. I hadn’t spent so much time around a table with people since… never. As there was no room for dancing we wrapped things up by standing and belting out all (there are more than you think) the verses of “Auld Lang Syne”. By all accounts, it was a successful evening and we’re already plotting Burns Night 2020. If all goes well and I manage to get some decent photos, I’ll pop back in to go on about it.
“A last request, permit me here,
When yearly ye assemble a’,
When yearly ye assemble a’,
One round, I ask it with a tear,
To him, the Bard, that’s far awa’.”