A
week today is one of the major dates in the Scottish calendar which is
enjoyed by Scots, at home and in exile alike, the annual celebration of the
birth of our National Bard, Robert Burns, on 25 January 1759. At countless
Burns Suppers, worldwide, his life and work will be marked as ‘The Immortal
Memory of Robert Burns’ is proposed by a myriad of speakers. His songs and
poems will ring out as a few drams are raised in memory of the greatest Scot
of all-time.
The first
Burns Club was set up in Greenock in 1801, only 5 years after his untimely
death, and Clubs and his work spread worldwide. A group of the Bard’s
friends held their own remembrance and met in Alloway (his birthplace) in
1802 and sat down to ‘a comfortable dinner of which sheep’s head and Haggis
formed an interesting part’. Haggis had. of course, been immortalised in
verse by the Bard himself in 1786 during his first visit to Edinburgh.
A Burns
Supper without Haggis would be a gey puir affair, so this week’s recipe for
Vegetarian Haggis allows everyone to enjoy the great night in proper style.
Vegetarian
Haggis
Ingredients:
½ lb flour; ½ lb breadcrumbs; 6 oz butter; 1 small onion, chopped; teacupful
pinhead oatmeal; 1’2 cup cooked green lentils; 2 eggs; vegetable stock
Method:
Melt butter, add to the dry ingredients and moisten with a little stock.
Season with white pepper and salt to taste. Boil in a covered basin for
about three hours.
