Robert Burns made his first visit to Edinburgh in November 1786, just two months short of his 28th birthday. The journey to Scotland’s capital city from his native Ayrshire took two days, allowing for frequent stops along the way for an uplifting dram or two.
Earlier that year Burns’ first collection of poetry – Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect – had been published to considerable acclaim. His reputation preceded him and Edinburgh’s “glitterati” welcomed the young poet from the provinces with open arms. He was wined and dined in style at the Assembly Rooms and St Cecilia’s Hall, and introduced to the gastronomic delights of salon society.
Much as he loved the attention, Burns couldn’t stomach the fashionable French fodder. Brought up on an impoverished diet of oats, beans and cabbage, enlivened by the occasional gamey treat, he much preferred the simple but hearty fare served in the city’s many taverns. He preferred, too, the lively company he found in their steamy, smoke-filled rooms, and the rough whisky they served, much of it illicitly distilled in Edinburgh by displaced Highlanders right under the nose of the authorities.
One night he was invited to supper at the Edinburgh home of an Ayrshire friend, a merchant named Andrew Bruce. Mrs Bruce prepared a haggis, and so delicious was it that Burns felt compelled to celebrate the occasion with a poetic tribute to the “Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!”. It is said that the last verse of the poem was actually composed over dinner with another friend, John Morrison, a cabinet maker, though it is not recorded whether haggis was on the menu that day.
The poem, formally entitled “Address To A Haggis”, was published in the December 1786 issue of the Caledonian Mercury and made a second appearance a month later in Scots Magazine. It was the first Burns poem to be published in a periodical.
The poem elevated haggis into a national institution that would eventually become synonymous with Burns Night. Although it was no more popular than many other Scottish dishes of the time, its use of very basic ingredients and its unpretentious presentation clearly appealed to Robert Burns, champion of the common man and the simple life.
But before you tuck into the celebrated dish on January 25th, raise a glass to Mrs Bruce. It must have been one heck of a haggis!
ADDRESS TO A HAGGIS
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
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 Labour 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-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The 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 wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit:
Thro bloody 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 make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.
Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis! |
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