It is Scottish tradition to celebrate the birthday of Robert Burns and on January 25 the official birthday of Scotland’s most celebrated poet, there were many glasses of scotch raised to the man whose ode to the haggis has been immortalized in verse.
There was a full house of Scottsmen and the Scottish at heart for the Robbie Burns Supper at the Fairwinds Clubhouse restaurant in Nanoose Bay Wednesday night.
Charles Stephen, food and beverage nanager at Fairwinds said they had 121 guests for their seventh annual Robbie Burns Supper. The highlight of the night, the haggis was piped in by Josh Deilman and toasted with great enthusiasm by John Beaton.
The pudding of all puddings, the haggis is made from sheep’s offal, beef suet and lightly toasted oatmeal and is traditionally placed inside the sheep’s stomach.
A few guests chose to pass on the haggis, missing out on the poached pudding which was sweetened by Stephen, who poured a little dram of Scotch over each portion.
During the meal guests enjoyed many tributes to Burns and the traditional custom of a toast to the lassies which was presented by Craig Sinclair very humorously. He admitted he was surprised he was chosen for the toast considering he is short, fat and bald, but he agreed to take on the job because Sean Connery wasn’t available. Sinclair was a hard act to follow but the rebuttal by Rhonda Lott, a poem she penned herself poking fun at sailers and golfers, generated plenty of laughter.