As always. I got myself volunteered in the food preparation in the church kitchen. I don't know why I do that, I make the same mistake every year! First we peeled 50 pounds of tatties and about 70 pounds of neeps (that's potatoes and turnips to the uninitiated!).
Then it was all cooked, mashed, salt and pepper and butter added and piled into serving dishes ready to be heated up the following day.
One of my tasks is to heat the haggis, and here they are in my kitchen, ready to pop into the oven. The national dish of Bonny Scotland - sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs) minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach.... doesn't that sound appetising? Best eaten with your eyes shut!
The haggis is traditionally piped into the dining hall with the diners standing to attention, and Burns' "Ode to a Haggis" is recited over it as it is ceremonially opened with a sharp knife. We drank a toast to the haggis with apple juice... the closest we'll get to Scotch tonight, this is a church function!!!
My dinner.... roast beef and horseradish, haggis, peas, tatties and neeps, all smothered in gravy, with some coleslaw on the side.
.... and then a strathspey and a reel from our Scottish Country Dance Group.... I'm peering over everyone's heads from the back row.
