As ever, the Cambridge Scottish Society will be pulling out all the stops for their celebration, hosting a wine reception, dinner and dancing at Sidney Sussex College on Saturday 24 January. Guests will be treated to hearty Highland fare including haggis with neeps and tatties, as well as cock o’leekie soup, which will be accompanied by the traditional Address to The Haggis. After dinner music will be provided by the Tartan Lassies, and tickets are £35 per person.
The Lord Byron Inn, Trumpington, is serving a hearty Burns Night Supper on 24 January. On the menu is cock-a-leekie soup haggis, neeps & tatties or potted salmon followed by a choice of Highland pheasant casserole, warm salad of red cabbage, black pudding and apple or baked salmon in Whisky sauce. Pudding is marmalade and Whisky bread and butter pudding or Whisky raspberry tartlet with crème fraiche. It’s £21.95 for three courses.
Alternatively, mosey over to Loch Fyne on Trumpington Street for an elegant and contemporary take on Burns Night dinner, or pop along to the cosy Kingston Arms, where they always serve up a scrumptious Scottish feast in honour of the day.
Further afield, there’s a chance to see inside the wonderful Barley Town House on 31 January. Enjoy a three-course home-cooked meal, music, reeling and more at this wonderful old building. Starts 7.30pm, tickets £17.50 and proceeds go to Save The Children.
And, anyone wondering what all the words were to the Address to a Haggis, here you go:
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 worthy o’ 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 scunner,
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!
