This was a special weekend in Edinburgh, as they were celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birthday of their National poet, Robert Burns. All over town they were planning Burns Suppers, which would include reading his poetry and singing his songs. (Auld Lang Syne is one of his best known songs.) Most of the dinners would include a dish called haggis. Following is the Wikipedia entry for haggis.
Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish.
There are many recipes, most of which have in common the following ingredients: sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours.
Haggis somewhat resembles stuffed intestines (pig intestines otherwise known as chitterlings or the kokoretsi of traditional Balkan cuisine), sausages and savoury puddings of which it is among the largest types. As the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique puts it, "Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour."[1]
Most modern commercial haggis is prepared in a casing rather than an actual stomach. There are also meat-free recipes for vegetarians.
Haggis is traditionally served with "neeps and tatties" (Scots: swede, yellow turnip or rutabaga and potatoes, boiled and mashed separately) and a "dram" (i.e. a glass of Scotch whisky), especially as the main course of a Burns supper. However it is also often eaten with other accompaniments, or served with a Whisky-based sauce.
Carl and I were not able to attend any of the Burns suppers, but we did see the folks arriving for a black tie private event held at our hotel, the Sheraton. The women wore gowns and a few men wore tuxedos, but most of the men wore kilts with knee socks (hose) and formal jackets. They looked very formal – and quite elegant, actually.
Around Edinburgh we saw several men in kilts playing bagpipes – Scotland’s version of the street musician. They were not dressed formally at all.
One of the kilted men was stationed outside the Edinburgh Castle, and was made up to look like Mel Gibson. While we watched him, he was talking to one woman in the crowd and suddenly pulled up his kilt and showed her his bum, as he claimed, “to validate the rumour” that men indeed do not wear underwear underneath their kilts.
Carl and I took a tour of the Edinburgh Castle -- set high on a large rock hill in the heart of the city. According to the guides, the rock was formed from moving glaciers – and there were a couple of those hills around the city. Historians estimate that the Castle rock has been inhabited for over 3,000 years. The castle looms very high over the city, and is very impressive, especially when lit up at night.
My picture doesn't do it justice.
This next photo shows the castle in daytime, as we approached it for the tour.
And the photo below shows the view of the city looking down from the castle. This view looks down on Princes Street in the New Town part of Edinburgh. In the background, you can see the water that leads out to the North Sea.
As a city, Edinburgh is rather small and self contained. Also, It has a really unusual design. The landscape is hilly, and there are neighborhoods in valleys with bridges crossing over them from one hill to the next. The Old Town part of the city has a High Street that is built literally on top of an original older, poorer section of the city. The story goes that during the time of the plague in the 1600s, the original poor section of town in the valley had a river running through it, with tenements along it. Because of the poor sanitary conditions, the plague spread rapidly among this population. Eventually, that part of the city was closed down, covered over and sealed off forever. So there is this abandoned underground area of the city that has been left untouched and exactly as it was in the seventeenth century.
There is a tour offered into this older, underground area, and Carl and I decided to take it. In a small group, we followed the guide in darkness descending about four storeys below street level down a tight winding stairway into a dark dusty room. The only light source was the small pen light the guide used to point out the bucket in the corner that had been used as a toilet when poor people lived here in the 17th century. She then described how that bucket was emptied twice a day out the window into the street below – and then flushed off into the river. As she lead our group through a tiny archway to go down yet another dark, narrow stairway, I discovered I felt very uncomfortable and did not want to go any further down. In fact, I wanted up and out of the place. Carl and I turned around and left the tour. I regret that I didn’t get to see the rest of the underground area, because I am curious about it, and I am sure I have never seen anything like it before. But there was no way I could continue further on down at that time.
St Giles is an old and beautiful church that we saw on the new High Street built over the closed up area in the Old town. That part of the street is called the Royal Mile.
Today, St Giles is a Presbyterian church.
Of course, being church building admirers, we looked at it on the inside as well.
I bought some interesting books while in Edinburgh -- some anthologies of legends and stories about the Scots and the Celts. These will be added to my own collection of books at home containing folk tales, fairy tales, and legends from cultures around the world. I also got some small booklets describing the history of the MacIntosh clan – my ancestors from Inverness. They were a real fighting group – as were many of the Scottish clans. What else is new, right?
Even though Edinburgh is a small city, it is remarkable how many famous and accomplished people have come from there. Just to name a few authors, there is Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Burns, of course, and Sir Walter Scott. More recently, J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, did her writing in this city as well. One tour guide pointed out an ancient school in the city that Rowling had used as her model for the Hogwarts School. It is not surprising to learn that Edinburgh is referred to as the City of Literature.
One weekend was a short visit, but it was a just the right amount of time to get a general overview and a feel for the city. If we were staying longer in London, I would want to visit Edinburgh again.
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