A real Scottish Ceilidh Party! With Haggis!

Story and Photos by Vivienne Mackie

Britannia Hotel, Aberdeen:

It's a Ceilidh (pronounced kaylee). And we're invited. This Gaelic word for a traditional get-together with music and food conjures up all sorts of exciting images as we anticipate the night's festivities organized for the end of the conference we're attending. Haggis, cranachan, whisky, bagpipes, tartan, Highland dances. We'll experience all these Scottish icons, and most we anticipate with pleasure, one with uncertainty---haggis---mostly because we've never had it before, and somehow it doesn't seem very appetizing, this sheep stomach stuffed with organ meat and oatmeal. We ask some of our Scots colleagues and our waitress whether they like haggis and their "Not really" is not reassuring.

The formal dining room's round tables, elegantly set with white linen and sparkling crystal, are grouped around a small dance floor. Our hosts, in tartan kilts, seat us.

First, it's a whisky tasting (remember, in Scotland it's spelled whisky, not whiskey). Each place setting has four glass goblets, like small pots with lids, arranged on a place mat with a map of Scotland, showing famous distilleries. Each goblet has a shot of whisky for tasting. Some of the people at our table are whisky lovers, and they smile as they see what's on the menu. I'm a wine and beer person myself, so this will be a novel taste test. The lady who leads the tasting rhapsodizes eloquently about each whisky. I am surprised, as the language is even more flowery than descriptions I've heard at wine tastings. "Now, this one is toffee apple, and caramel, with a hint of candy floss".

I don't like whisky, but dutifully have a sip of each (and find I still don't like it). I feel vaguely guilty, as this is "the water of life here", but remind myself that I really like Scottish beer. I say that a very peaty one has a strong smell, just like the inside of a smoky rural African hut, a comment that makes our table collapse in giggles.

Two men in kilts carry a table and set it down on the dance floor, where the conference chairman waits. It's time for the haggis.

A kilted piper enters ceremoniously to pipe in the procession with the haggis. It's stirring music and all the guests stand. The chef, holding a large haggis on a platter above his head, follows the piper. It looks like an enormous fat sausage, gently steaming. Two waiters carrying a bottle of whisky and glasses follow him. They all walk sedately around the room and halt by the chairman.

The chairman fills a glass with whisky and raises it.

"At this conference, the microbiologists and the nutritionists often don't understand each other's language. Well, now I'll even the score and we'll read something that none of you will understand".

A colleague comes forward to read the "Address to the Haggis", a poem by Robbie Burns. There are eight verses, much of it in Gaelic, a beautiful lilting language, but many words we cannot understand. When he gets to the third verse and says,

"His knife see rustic labor dight/An'cut you up wi' ready sleight.." that's the signal for the chef to stab the haggis with his long knife.

At the end of the poem, the piper pipes the chef and waiters out of the room and then returns to the chairman, who pours a dram of whisky into a silver quaitch. The piper lifts this two-handled shallow drinking bowl, drinks the whisky, turns the quaitch upside down to show it's empty, and kisses it.

Waiters and waitresses enter to serve our meal. The menu reads:

Rabbies Favourite (Haggis, Neeps and Tatties)/ Raspberry Cranachan/Coffee served with cream, and of course, whisky.

(Supposedly Robbie Burns really liked all these)

And now...the haggis.

On each plate are two round slices of haggis, topped with mashed yellow turnips (neeps) and mashed potato (tatties). We gingerly slice off a small piece and taste it. Well...what was all the fuss about? The haggis contains a lot of oatmeal to bind it all together, so it's rather solid and heavy. The taste is bland and indefinite, except for being chilli hot (is that to mask the real taste, we wonder?). We try washing it down with whisky, but that doesn't seem to be the right thing to do with whisky somehow, so we resort to white wine.

For many years the haggis was regarded as an uncivilized dish, for poor uncivilized people, probably because of what it is; the stomach bag of a sheep, stuffed with minced organ meat, oatmeal, and onions---a way for those people to use up every part of an animal. But, now that it has become an accepted, almost gourmet dish, there is even a vegetarian version.

Anyway, we did it! We tried the haggis and our final verdict is..."Much ado about nothing".

In contrast, the raspberry cranachan dessert is delicious.

The atmosphere becomes more jovial and when a couple of teenage girls dance for us, everyone is ready to hum and clap along. They wear traditional tartan skirts in a green-red-white pattern, matching tartan stockings (but no shoes), a white blouse and black-laced vest. The Highland Fling is very energetic, with arms raised to depict the antlers of the red deer, but we are especially amazed at their agility in the Sword Dance, feet tapping in an intricate rhythm and pattern to the droning bagpipe and fiddle dance music.

All the hosts, including these young girls, are so excited to be showing us part of their culture and customs, and this ceilidh showcases some of the best. Whether it was "real" or touristy didn't matter, as it was fun all the same. If you're ever invited to a Typical Scottish Ceilidh, please go---you'll enjoy it all...even the haggis.