Lady and the Haggis
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.
-"Address to a Haggis", Robert Burns, 1786
My family is Scottish. My mother's mother grew up in Glasgow. I grew up eating shortbread and plum pudding at Christmastime, associating important family gatherings with live bagpipe music, and thanking my mother for not naming me Euphemia (my grandmother's first choice). I listened to stories about sheep, dogs, and sheepdogs, knew that when my grandmother called me a 'wee girdle' in her thick Glaswegian accent she was really saying 'wee girl', and learned to appreciate the writing of Robert Burns, Scotland's most beloved poet.
My grandmother loved Burns. She gave talks on his works at her garden club in Ohio and kept a book of his poetry with her annotations in the margins. She quoted the Selkirk Grace to my cousins on the rare occasions that they complained about their food at dinner. When I wrote a paper on Burns' poetry for my 8th grade English class, my 92 year old grandmother was still excited as ever about Scotland's National Bard.
And so it was that I found myself hunting down a venue to celebrate Burns Night in London. I knew that people gathered for dinner on January 25 to celebrate Robert Burns' birthday, eat haggis, sing songs, and drink whiskey, but for all my family's love of Scottish traditions I had never actually done it.
Last night I went with four friends to the White Horse Pub in Hampstead for just such a celebration. We drank beer, wine, and whiskey. We stood to sing a rowdy "Auld Lang Syne". We watched the piper pipe in the haggis and listened to our kilt-clad kinsman as he addressed fabled meat. We stifled laughs as the woman across from us got drunk to the point of reciting poetry in front of the crowd. We looked curiously as the man next to us sat through the entire meal with a stuffed toy bird perched inside his button-down shirt, then later forgave him when we learned that he was a famous actor on a children's television show about birdwatching.
It was a bit strange that Burns Night was my cultural event, even while I am two generations removed from the epicenter of Scottish culture. I'm so used to being the "white kid" that goes to events of people that actually have culture that I had to laugh a little bit about Burns Night being my "cultural show." Look everyone, my people wear plaid and listen to a musical instrument made from a sheep stomach while drinking lots of awful tasting alcohol and eating strange meat! I have haggis! I have culture!
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.
-"Address to a Haggis", Robert Burns, 1786
My family is Scottish. My mother's mother grew up in Glasgow. I grew up eating shortbread and plum pudding at Christmastime, associating important family gatherings with live bagpipe music, and thanking my mother for not naming me Euphemia (my grandmother's first choice). I listened to stories about sheep, dogs, and sheepdogs, knew that when my grandmother called me a 'wee girdle' in her thick Glaswegian accent she was really saying 'wee girl', and learned to appreciate the writing of Robert Burns, Scotland's most beloved poet.
My grandmother loved Burns. She gave talks on his works at her garden club in Ohio and kept a book of his poetry with her annotations in the margins. She quoted the Selkirk Grace to my cousins on the rare occasions that they complained about their food at dinner. When I wrote a paper on Burns' poetry for my 8th grade English class, my 92 year old grandmother was still excited as ever about Scotland's National Bard.
And so it was that I found myself hunting down a venue to celebrate Burns Night in London. I knew that people gathered for dinner on January 25 to celebrate Robert Burns' birthday, eat haggis, sing songs, and drink whiskey, but for all my family's love of Scottish traditions I had never actually done it.
Last night I went with four friends to the White Horse Pub in Hampstead for just such a celebration. We drank beer, wine, and whiskey. We stood to sing a rowdy "Auld Lang Syne". We watched the piper pipe in the haggis and listened to our kilt-clad kinsman as he addressed fabled meat. We stifled laughs as the woman across from us got drunk to the point of reciting poetry in front of the crowd. We looked curiously as the man next to us sat through the entire meal with a stuffed toy bird perched inside his button-down shirt, then later forgave him when we learned that he was a famous actor on a children's television show about birdwatching.
It was a bit strange that Burns Night was my cultural event, even while I am two generations removed from the epicenter of Scottish culture. I'm so used to being the "white kid" that goes to events of people that actually have culture that I had to laugh a little bit about Burns Night being my "cultural show." Look everyone, my people wear plaid and listen to a musical instrument made from a sheep stomach while drinking lots of awful tasting alcohol and eating strange meat! I have haggis! I have culture!
Comment on the original post at A Lady in London
The article above originally appeared on A Lady in London; we selected it for our BlogSherpa program. We sign up the best travel bloggers we can find and publish their articles on lonelyplanet.com. Good for us, good for them – our bloggers gain new readers and make a bit of cash. Want to know more or be a part of BlogSherpa? Visit the BlogSherpa page on lplabs.com
