Craig Menzies 2.0

Published in Victoria’s Monday Magazine

The High Art of Robbie Burns Day suppers (abroad)

By CRAIG MENZIES

What’s that you say? You don’t know who Robbie Burns is? Shocking!

For your edification, Robert Burns (1759-1796) is the famous Scottish bard who is immortalized for the brilliantly incomprehensible poem “Auld Lang Syne,” and whose remaining body of work might best be subtitled “Poems About Things I Found On My Body One Evening After Returning from the Pub.”

His titles include such notable works as: “To a Louse,” “To a Mouse” and “Ode to the Burning Sensation When I Urinate.” Or something like that.

Besides writing poetry, the rest of his life seemed to be sincerely and zealously devoted to those lesser-known Scottish virtues: Public Inebriation and Fornication. And guess what, his birthday is coming up on January 25!

That’s right, the day is quickly approaching when Scots abroad everywhere hold a traditional Robbie Burns Supper for their North American friends. Rubbing their hands with glee, the Scottish hosts invite their unsuspecting non-Scottish friends over for dinner, cajoling some guy who can muster a passable Scottish brogue into reciting the worst poem known to man (except maybe for some of my own), and then watch as he ravages a defenseless haggis with a fierce battle cry and a machete.

It’s a dry-cleaning nightmare, honestly, with bloody chunks of sheep’s stomach, entrails and oatmeal flying like overcooked shrapnel about the place, staining everyone’s expensive rented kilts, white blouses and tartan sashes.

But the men sitting in kilts for the first time aren’t thinking about what they’re about to eat. They’re secretly preoccupied, wondering if this somehow affects their sexual orientation. Robbie Burns Suppers have outed more people than Barbara Streisand records, and what with the feel of all that harsh wool against a bare ass, really it’s not surprising.

Then everyone gathered seems to nod appreciatively at Burns lines like: “Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware/ That jaups in luggies.”

Huh? But our guests nod like it’s high art and seem to forget that Burns was writing a poem about a sheep’s stomach, straining with lard. Then we ply the guests with more hard liquor and everyone seems to be OK with the whole thing. Except for maybe the vegetarians in the crowd who wait—in vain—for some non-meatlike substance to appear on the banquet table.

Then we Scots laugh, because we can’t believe anyone really thinks we would seriously eat that kind of crap, and because we’re also kind of drunk, and the only reason we even invented the haggis in the first place was because starvation was the only other decent alternative. We would have boiled our leather shoes and underpants (if we had any), but then some daft prick named Angus says: “Hey, look at all those sheep over there. Let’s kill one and stuff its stomach with some oatmeal and whatever else is lying around and boil the crap out of it. That’ll be good!”

Once everybody’s good and pissed, we make them dance. Well, that is to say, we force them into a full-contact melee with the other guests called “The Highland Fling.”

If things are going really well, we might throw a bunch of swords on the floor just to make things interesting. What people never seem to understand is that you’re supposed to pick up the swords and use them against the other combatants. Nobody ever gets that part, even though it seems that the bagpipes are only there because they are supposed to cover up the sounds of the wounded and dying. You would honestly think that would be obvious. They’re like lilies at a funeral, only louder.

But we persevere in the face of so much misunderstanding. That’s what Scots do, we persevere. In fact, we’ve won the “Most Likely to Refuse Medical Aid When We Clearly Have The Worse Case of Gout I’ve Even Seen” award for the last five generations running, not to mention winning runner-up at a recent United Nations “Get off the Cross, We Need the Wood” competition.

And we’re also quite proud of our contribution to international sports, with such wholesome events as basketball (invented by James Naismith), the caber toss (invented by a drunken Scotsman running with a telephone pole) and the hammer throw (invented by a drunken Scotsman throwing a big rock).

To be fair, we Scots are also known for our ingenuity. In fact, we tend to lord it over the rest of the world, making grandiose claims about the achievements of Scots like Alexander Graham Bell (who invented the telephone), James Watt (who invented the steam engine), Adam Smith (who wrote The Wealth of Nations, and is considered the father of modern capitalism), and Angus MacAngus (who is the guy who thought it would be a really good idea to carve a turnip for Halloween).

And so, this Robbie Burns day, go out and eat some haggis, eat some turnip, drink some good whiskey and maybe start a brawl or two. Burns would have really liked that.

And, just in case you thought this article was in any way accurate or serious, his poetry is really quite good and well worth a look—though the haggis thing is still pretty dodgy.