Lang May Yer Lum Reek

Day 104: Here, on the wrong side of the dateline, it is January 25th, causing a small amount of confusion as to when Robert Burns' birthday should be celebrated with the traditional Burns Night dinner. Mine will be tonight, and a number of factors have gone into my decision to make a "faux haggis," "mock haggis," or whatever else you want to call it. A few years ago, the owner of the local company where I have always bought my haggis exposed himself to be a racist in several comments on his personal Facebook account. I said (with some profane adjectives), "That does it for me. I don't have to have haggis, and I feel I must stand by my principles." I stopped shopping with him as, apparently, did quite a few other people. The shop has gone out of business. Since then, I've been on a haggis hunt (the little buggers should really be classified as endangered for as rare as they have become), but to no avail. I cannot abide the thought of a canned haggis, and short of mortgaging my house for the shipping fees on a fresh one, I have been unable to find any other supplier. Frustrated, I began searching for an alternative, and came up with a recipe from The Kilted Chef which sounds like it should approximate the real thing fairly closely in both taste and texture. It uses chicken livers in place of sheep organ meats, and seems to be much easier to prepare. A wee drap o' Glen Livet should level out any inequities. Lang may yer lum reek!

Chieftain Of The Pudding Race

Day 104 honors Robert Burns whose 256th birthday Scots everywhere celebrate today. I give you a translation of the great man's own words regarding the eminent haggis.

Address to a Haggis

Fair and full is your honest, jolly face,
Great chieftain of the sausage race!
Above them all you take your place,
Stomach, tripe, or intestines:
Well are you worthy of a grace
As long as my arm.

The groaning trencher there you fill,
Your buttocks like a distant hill,
Your pin would help to mend a mill
In time of need,
While through your pores the dews distill
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour wipe,
And cut you up with ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like any ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm steaming, rich!

Then spoon for spoon, they stretch and strive:
Devil take the hindmost, on they drive,
Till all their well swollen bellies by-and-by
Are bent like drums;
Then old head of the table, most like to burst,
'The grace!' hums.

Is there that over his French ragout,
Or olio that would sicken a sow,
Or fricassee would make her vomit
With perfect disgust,
Looks down with sneering, scornful view
On such a dinner?

Poor devil! see him over his trash,
As feeble as a withered rush,
His thin legs a good whip-lash,
His fist a nut;
Through bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit.

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his ample fist a blade,
He'll make it whistle;
And legs, and arms, and heads will cut off
Like the heads of thistles.

You powers, who make mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill of fare,
Old Scotland wants no watery stuff,
That splashes in small wooden dishes;
But if you wish her grateful prayer,
Give her (i.e., Scotland) a Haggis