Alternative Burns Suggestions

While Macsween respects tradition and nurtures the national dish, we believe that you can celebrate Burns' life and work in any way that you deem suitable.  For example, you could perform contemporary Burns-inspired poems and songs, or have a Burns quiz or Burns charades.

‘Burns Fortune Cookies’ is a fun pursuit, whereby a slip of paper with a line or two from a Burns poem is given to each guest.  Each person then has to work out from which Burns poem the lines have been taken (perhaps one for the connoisseur).  You may help things along by having books available, or another guest could have different lines from the same poem.

Of course, if you’re in a hurry, you can even do Burns’ Night the easy way with our new 1 minute haggis.  A simple and quick way to tip your hat to Scotland’s national poet. 

How about a Burns fancy dress, or a red, red rose theme?  In fact, it is up to you how you wish to celebrate the life and work of Scotland's national poet!

If you are struggling with the Scots pronunciation in some of Burns' works, try some contemporary poetry.

Address to a Hot Haggis

The haggis has taken the world by storm
With evocative Scottishness, a cheeky chubby form
And an epic, eight-verse intro, which is frankly not the norm
(may I be so bold?)
For a dish that's most delicious when eaten very warm
In a land so cold.

Now, girls, let wisdom be your guide,
Assert your deep-down sense o' pride
Our hips we care not now how wide -
We'll still attract.
This meal will hug you from inside
And that's a fact.

So hasten hottest haggis unto your waiting lips
With traditional mashed tatties, a side of ubiquitous chips
Or pan-fried haggis filo balls with raspberry garlic dips
Make swift this grace
So with the piping pudding here please now get to grips
And fill your face!

By Elspeth Murray (verses one and three commissioned by Great Circle Communications in 2004; verse two written for Jo Macsween's address to the haggis at The Girls' Burns Night for the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, 2006)

A wee collection of Haggis Haiku

Spicy, glistening, painch
Honest, sonsie, reekin’ rich –
Hunger remedy

Uncomplicated
pepperiness on my lips -
My childhood comfort

Humble origins
to global ambassador -
International scran

Nae fancy cuisine
Nae weight watchers dieting –
Gie me mair haggis!

By Jo Macsween (the address to the haggis for The Girls' Burns Night at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, 2008)

A Vegetarian Selkirk Grace

Some hae meat and canna eat
And some wad eat that want it:
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.
But some hate meat and girn and weep,
Resisting all coercion,
So bless the tatties, bless the neeps
And the vegetarian version.
Then filled wi' fruits o' field and vine
And feelin fairlie frisky,
The One who water turned to wine,
We'd ask to bless the whisky.

Extra verses by Richard Medrington