Birthday Wishes tae Rabbie Burns!
@owlwings (43910)
Cambridge, England
January 25, 2021 12:57pm CST
Tonight is Burns' Night! (pronounced 'Burns Nicht' with a rolling Scottish 'R', a short 'i', as in 'lit' and a 'CH' that comes from the back of the throat).
It's the birthday of Robert Burns, a simple farm labourer, who was born on 25 January 1759. He was educated mainly by his father but he also learned French and Latin at local schools.
He's mainly remembered nowadays for his poetry and songs (perhaps the best known is "My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose") and he is regarded as the National Bard of Scotland. Many of his poems are in Scottish dialect but the one which is often read today - "Address to The Haggis" -, on the occasion of his birthday, is in English with some dialect words.
I had better explain, first, what a haggis is.
The word 'haggis' means 'something chopped (hacked) up', so it's basically bits of animal chopped up and mixed with oatmeal, herbs and spices and stuffed into the stomach of a sheep or pig to make a large, fat sausage.
Traditionally. this poor man's fare made from the lungs, brains, liver and other offal of sheep and pigs is served with 'hashit tatties and bashit neeps' (mashed potato and pounded turnip) but the meal often includes cabbage and other vegetables.
Being Scottish, it is traditional to serve it with a not-so-wee dram of whisky on the side (and that is used both to drink a toast to the bard and to wash the haggis down).
Please raise your glasses to the memory of Rabbie Burns, one of the finest poets in history!
https://youtu.be/qJSjAGVV6Zg
26 people like this
20 responses
Very good discussion Owl
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
25 Jan 21
There are some strange words in it which need translating. but the video is a clear rendition of the authentic accent and the images chosen do match the meaning quite well. Burns was a singer before he was a poet, I suspect, so the rhythm would be important to him.
3 people like this
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
26 Jan 21
Now that I think about it, the texture of a haggis is not unlike a risotto made with liver and herbs because a large part of it appears to be whole oat berries, which have a bite to them rather like rice. It's drier and not as sticky as a risotto and has rather less grain and more meat than a risotto would but the two are not dissimilar except in the manner of cooking (a haggis is boiled in its skin for several hours, which is why it's called a 'pudding').
2 people like this
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
26 Jan 21
@owlwings You can also buy haggis in a tin (in normal times, at least). I don't know how good it is: I have heard that it can be dreadful but this one looks as though it might be alright.
https://www.thehaggis.com/shop/haggis/traditional-scotch-haggis/
1 person likes this
@LadyDuck (471272)
• Switzerland
26 Jan 21
@owlwings We make a sausage risotto in Milan and I imagine that it can be similar, I have to see if there is a place where I can try haggis, surely not here in our small corner of the world, but may be in Milan... the day the borders will open again.
2 people like this
@RebeccasFarm (89832)
• Arvada, Colorado
10 Feb 21
Rabbie Burns RIP
Never had haggis myself.
2 people like this
@jobelbojel (35461)
• Philippines
13 Feb 21
I have not heard of him or maybe I did. I cannot remember. Thank you for sharing. Haggis sounds interesting.
2 people like this
@Chellezhere (5701)
• United States
12 Apr 21
Being 45% Scots, and having a branch of his Burns' line in my own tree, I'd beg to differ with you on which of Burns' poems is most popular - well, at least here in the States anyway. More people are familiar with Auld Lang Syne and one line in To A Mouse. ("The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley...").
Sadly, haggis has been banned here since 1971.
Traditional Scottish haggis is banned in the United States. With Burns Night looming, how do fans satisfy their taste for oatmeal and offal?
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
13 Apr 21
That's a useful video and I must try what it recommends. It does assume, though, that there is a chair or something nearby. Of course, I didn't fall and there was nothing nearby in the garden. My daughter has since bought me a walking frame, which I don't need for walking, but which would be useful if I ever need to kneel down and want to get up again!
1 person likes this
@Chellezhere (5701)
• United States
13 Apr 21
@owlwings Perhaps for you it may seem useless. But others have had success from watching it.
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
13 Apr 21
@Chellezhere I didn't say it was useless! Far from it! I hope that your text-to-speech app read it correctly!
1 person likes this
I have heard of him and his poetry.
I have heard about the Haggis and I am curious how it tastes.@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
4 May 21
Haggis is really a kind of sausage made with coarse oatmeal and the liver and heart and certain other parts of a sheep finely chopped, mixed together with herbs and spices, stuffed into a sheep's stomach and boiled. It would be difficult to describe the taste but it is very herby (sage, onion and pepper) and with the flavour of the liver and heart coming through. The texture is more like a meaty risotto than a sausage, though, and fairly dry, so it's usually served with a brown gravy or sauce made with whisky (of course!) and cabbage or mashed turnip and mashed potato on the side.
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
26 Jan 21
His family had very little money. His father was a farm manager and the farms he managed seemed always to fail (whether that was bad luck or bad management doesn't seem to be recorded). "Poor man's fare" is, however, an idiom. It means 'very basic food, of the kind that a person with little money would eat'.
Meat was (and is) expensive and the best of it (if you had an animal to sell for meat) would be sold to those who could afford it. The offal - the liver, heart, stomach, lungs and brains - would be what was left for the poorer people and haggis was one way of using these parts of the animal and making what little meat there was go further. That is why I describe it as 'poor man's fare'.
2 people like this
@BarBaraPrz (47256)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
25 Jan 21
Oh, yeah, I was gonna mention it but forgot. Happy day to you.
1 person likes this
@lovinangelsinstead21 (36850)
• Pamplona, Spain
26 Jan 21
Wishing him all the best wherever he is.
Have tried Haggis its nae ma favourite thing a tod a whisky maybe yes.
1 person likes this
@allknowing (135934)
• India
25 Jan 21
Indeed a great eulogy you have here for someone you admire. Never heard about this poet nor did I know about that huge sausage. Thank you for educating me.
1 person likes this
@changjiangzhibin89 (16755)
• China
26 Jan 21
I am so uninformed that haven't known of Rabbie Burns whose stock is high in the circle of English poets.Searching online the poem "my love is like a red,red rose",find that love was written as luve and you as thee.
1 person likes this
@RasmaSandra (79648)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
26 Jan 21
I know that man well and I know about haggis but never had it. I have had a version of it with oatmeal, onions, bacon, smoked sausage and a bit of whisky to get it down,
1 person likes this
