Haggis, Neeps & Tatties
Jan. 31st, 2006 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhythmaningWe went to a Burns’ supper on Saturday night, in memory of Scotland’s renowned poet, Rabbi Burns*.
It was a large affair in Edinburgh University’s Playfair Library – a large Georgian hall, set within a “quad” (now used as a car park).
This was the first formal Burns’ supper I had been to; there was an interesting mixture of people there, including several who work in different parts of the firm I work for, plus a load of graduate students and alumni from the university, and their partners.
On our table of seven (someone’s partner being indisposed – the joy of baby-sitters), there were two Scots, three from England (that’ll be me, then), a German and a Georgian**.
After the Selkirk grace –not originally said in Selkirk, apparently, but said about the Earl of Selkirk or someone – the pukka Englishman who had only recently left the army asked, “Was that gaelic?”, and he clearly didn’t buy my explanation that it was lalands – a lowland Scots dialect of English. He hadn’t understood a word.
Personally, I had trouble understanding the rich brogue of the Atlantan***. I have never travelled to the far south of the US, and I could not separate out the peachy words. He had the brashness associated with American graduate students – though he acknowledged his countrymen’s failings (and perhaps by extension his own?) when he said that he had really wanted to travel to Europe to do his masters degree – most Americans, he felt, were too parochial, and he wanted a broader experience than that. So he was, in part, a good guy.
One of the Scots was my wife; strangely, the other was studying to be a plant taxonomist at the Royal Botanic Garden; I say strange, because I doubt that anyone else in the room aside from would have had the faintest idea what she was talking about; and similarly, no one else would have gone “Oh my God!” when I told I had collected plants in New Caledonia whilst I was working at the Botanics. And we shared a mutual excitement for rain forest.
I quite like haggis – though it is vegetarian haggis I prefer; this maybe because I have been told what goes into making haggis. This one was more spicy than usual, and very rich; I had a large portion, washed down with some shiraz and a dram of Old Poulteney, which I thought was rather good.
If the Selkirk Grace had confused them, the Address to the Haggis had them completely bemused; the Immortal Memory was good – a speaker called Watt Lomax, I think –but the Toast to the Lassies and their reply didn’t quite hit the mark – trying to be too clever by half. And God, they went on…
We actually left before everything was done – we didn’t hear Tam O’ Shanter, and we didn’t hear some musical accompaniment; but there is a time and place. It seemed a little too formal for me; it was interesting to go, but I think I prefer rather more boozy, energetic and amateur suppers.
*The influence of Burns on the interpretation of ancient Hassidic texts is often overlooked.
**That is, someone from Atlanta, Georgia, rather than someone from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia; or a person who helped build Edinburgh in the seventeenth century; although I guess technically you could say that there were Georgian’s in the twentieth century, too. History never was my strong point.
***Not someone from Atlantis – which doesn’t exist – but a native of Atlanta. Which would be in Georgia. (See above.)
It was a large affair in Edinburgh University’s Playfair Library – a large Georgian hall, set within a “quad” (now used as a car park).
This was the first formal Burns’ supper I had been to; there was an interesting mixture of people there, including several who work in different parts of the firm I work for, plus a load of graduate students and alumni from the university, and their partners.
On our table of seven (someone’s partner being indisposed – the joy of baby-sitters), there were two Scots, three from England (that’ll be me, then), a German and a Georgian**.
After the Selkirk grace –not originally said in Selkirk, apparently, but said about the Earl of Selkirk or someone – the pukka Englishman who had only recently left the army asked, “Was that gaelic?”, and he clearly didn’t buy my explanation that it was lalands – a lowland Scots dialect of English. He hadn’t understood a word.
Personally, I had trouble understanding the rich brogue of the Atlantan***. I have never travelled to the far south of the US, and I could not separate out the peachy words. He had the brashness associated with American graduate students – though he acknowledged his countrymen’s failings (and perhaps by extension his own?) when he said that he had really wanted to travel to Europe to do his masters degree – most Americans, he felt, were too parochial, and he wanted a broader experience than that. So he was, in part, a good guy.
One of the Scots was my wife; strangely, the other was studying to be a plant taxonomist at the Royal Botanic Garden; I say strange, because I doubt that anyone else in the room aside from would have had the faintest idea what she was talking about; and similarly, no one else would have gone “Oh my God!” when I told I had collected plants in New Caledonia whilst I was working at the Botanics. And we shared a mutual excitement for rain forest.
I quite like haggis – though it is vegetarian haggis I prefer; this maybe because I have been told what goes into making haggis. This one was more spicy than usual, and very rich; I had a large portion, washed down with some shiraz and a dram of Old Poulteney, which I thought was rather good.
If the Selkirk Grace had confused them, the Address to the Haggis had them completely bemused; the Immortal Memory was good – a speaker called Watt Lomax, I think –but the Toast to the Lassies and their reply didn’t quite hit the mark – trying to be too clever by half. And God, they went on…
We actually left before everything was done – we didn’t hear Tam O’ Shanter, and we didn’t hear some musical accompaniment; but there is a time and place. It seemed a little too formal for me; it was interesting to go, but I think I prefer rather more boozy, energetic and amateur suppers.
*The influence of Burns on the interpretation of ancient Hassidic texts is often overlooked.
**That is, someone from Atlanta, Georgia, rather than someone from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia; or a person who helped build Edinburgh in the seventeenth century; although I guess technically you could say that there were Georgian’s in the twentieth century, too. History never was my strong point.
***Not someone from Atlantis – which doesn’t exist – but a native of Atlanta. Which would be in Georgia. (See above.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-31 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-31 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-01 09:33 am (UTC)I usually pour my dram over my haggis - a strange habit, but I like it.
I also like that our national day is to honour a poet, not a politician or a soldier, and that most Scots if asked in the street will know at least a line or two of Burns - even if it's my Granda's favourite: "where ever ye be, let your wind blaw free. "
The Selkirk grace is a handy one to have up your sleeve in case you get asked to say grace at table: my version is,
"Some hae meet that cannae eat, some nae meat that whant it, but we hae meat, and we can eat, so let the Lord be thankit."
no subject
Date: 2006-02-01 10:07 am (UTC)Informal suppers = way better. Been to a couple of formal ones but, nah, small and personal is the way forward.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-01 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-01 10:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-01 01:27 pm (UTC)All we ever do on our national day is look at people developing pneumonia while participating in a parade and then get blootered. Ah well....