We’re celebrating Burns Night tomorrow at the Ports of Call in San Pedro, Calif., on Los Angeles Harbor. The festivities include a presentation of the haggis, which is accompanied by bagpipers and guarded by swordsmen as it is brought in. The MC then reads Burns’ “Ode to a Haggis,” a poem which makes the case that haggis is essentially health food.
During the dinner that follows, the haggis is passed around to each table. The meal is followed by Scottish country dancing.
Sounds like great fun except for the part about eating haggis.
And as the haggis is stabbed the reader of the poem recites “Ah, reekin’!” Haggis, food worthy of a poem, a piper escort, armed guards, and expressions of nausea from those who’ve never tried it.