Burns Supper

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Robert Burns (1759-1796)

The Burns Supper is in Scotland, an annual festival in honor of the poet Robert Burns . It is held on his birthday, January 25th ( Burns Night , in the Anglo-Saxon region, memorial days are usually birthdays and not days of death.) Burns Suppers are held on this date not only in Scotland, but everywhere where the very significant number of Scottish migrants and their children have settled in the world, particularly Canada, Northern Ireland, Australia and the United States.

The menu always says the same thing: soup, haggis with turnip and potatoes ( neeps and tatties ), and a trifle for dessert . At least whiskey is drunk when making toasts . The formal part of the evening follows a very ritualized sequence. Before the haggis is served, it is ceremoniously carried on a platter by the cook, accompanied by a kilt-clad bagpiper, to the speaker's table, where the host (or the landlord of the restaurant where Burns Night is celebrated) the Burns poem The Address to a Haggis (see below) recites. With the words cut you up wi 'ready slight ("slit yourself open with simple agility") in the third verse, the shell is cut open so that the innards run out and spread over the whole serving plate.

After the meal, a series of speeches is made, always in a strictly ritualized order. The Immortal Memory is a memorial address given to Burns, typically with literary appreciation of selected poems and a reference to contemporary politics and morals. In the Toast to the Lassies , a chosen man is allowed to piss women off before he dedicates a toast to them. One of the women is allowed to respond in a similarly teasing tone. In between, Burns' poems and songs are recited and sung.

The Address to a Haggis ( 1786 )
Fair fa 'your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftain o 'the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a 'ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thaim:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o 'need,
While thro 'your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see Rustic-labor 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!
Then, horn for horn they stretch an 'strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a 'their weel-swalled kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit hums.
Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi 'perfect sconner,
Looks down wi 'sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! See him owre his trash,
As feckless as a withered rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro 'bluidy flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An 'legs, an' arms, an 'heads will sned,
Like taps o 'thrissle.
Ye Powers wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o 'fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking goods
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu 'prayer,
Give me a haggis!

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