Not for me, the cock-a-leekie,
Nor Haggis, neeps & tatties,
For I am spared the Typsy Laird
I'm no Clootie Dumpling fatty.
An all his works and writings,
It's just we bought fish cakes instead,
Made from a lovely piece of whiting.
As you've no doubt deduced, Burns night isn't something that happens in our house. I'm sure it should, especially have we have a Scottish contingent to the family and as you can see from my thrown together rambling above - I do like good bit of poetry - well a good rhyme at least. That said, the traditional menu really won't suit, as I just can't get on with the cock-a-leekie soup or the Haggis. I know how hard it is to catch those pesky haggis too - having been on a haggis hunt when we were last up in scot land. They're an odd looking wee beastie, having different length legs on either side of their bodies. These have evolved in direct response to the mountainous habitat, with the short legs at the higher point of the hill and the long legs at the lower point, thus providing them with a horizontal view of the world from their highland vantage point. There are two differing breeds of haggis - lefties and righties - which travel around the mountains in opposite directions. Various attempts have been made to crossbreed the two, but all have ended in disaster - either very tall (easily spotted high above the heather) or very short (and they tend to get stuck in soft earth or mud and meet a sticky end). There was an odd side effect on one occasion (and only one) which produced a haggis with opposing length corner legs. Needless to say it spent much of its short life, lying on it's back and kicking. I'm told as a result there was very little fat on the meat, so it did make for good eating, but to produce the same result twice was a futile exercise, due to the rarity of the odd-leg gene. No, lefties should stick to lefties, and righties to righties - its the only way. On the plus side, the fish cakes really were great.
This post originally appeared here: Posterous
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