A Burns Supper

We were ever so kindly invited over to our neighbor’s house last Friday night to enjoy the experience of a Burns Supper. From what I can tell, these suppers can occur at any point during the last 3 weeks of January (though the technical day is the 25th) and they are in honor of Robert Burns who is a very famous Scot and played a major role in bringing Scottish culture to the rest of the world. Our Burns supper began with crisps and olives (just as an appetizer, it really has nothing to do with Burns) and lively conversation with our neighbor who was hosting, his sister, as well as another neighbor.

Dinner began with The Selkirk Grace and we were served our first course of cock-a-leekie soup, which was wonderful but very filling! Following this we had planned on addressing the haggis but alas, our neighbor couldn’t find his Burns book, so he did a summary for us :). We had haggis, neeps, carrots, and tatties.. and I ate it! I swore I never would, but that would have been impolite wouldn’t it? So, I ate it, and it was actually pretty good but it was veeeery hard for me to move passed the texture. For dessert we had sticky toffee pudding (made by my chef hubby) and a trifle. We’d never had trifle before and as some of you know, I have an aversion to soggy foods. The woman who made it didn’t think I’d like it, to which I said, ‘Well is it soggy?’ She had a great laugh, as did everyone else.. Apparently non-soggy trifle would be like eating chocolate-free chocolate cake. :) I DID try it though and it was very nice and fruity, but was a little hard to swallow.

We had a really wonderful time together and are looking forward to returning the favor and having our neighbor over for some ‘American’ (he apparently forgot that ‘American’ cuisine is just everyone else’s cuisine only with more butter and/or sugar :) or Mexican dishes.. Any suggestions?