It is Burns Night tomorrow evening (25 January) and the traditional dinner is haggis, neaps and tatties. Whilst there are a few vegetarian (and vegan) haggis available in shops I haven’t found a gluten free one. And I haven’t found one as good as this Gluten Free, Vegan Haggis Recipe. Tell me what you think!
I served this with mashed potatoes, purple sprouts (in season and amazing at the moment) and gravy. If I could find gluten free, vegan brown sauce that would be on the plate too. I prefer mine with purple sprouts and kale rather than mashed carrot and turnip. Others, I know, prefer neaps.
Burns Night/ Supper is an annual celebration of the life and poetry of Robert Burns – held on the anniversary of his birth. Burns poetry is incredibly influential. His poem To A Mouse inspired the title of John Steinbeck’s 1937 novel Of Mice and Men. The penultimate stanza of the poem contains these lines: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley” (paraphrased as The best-laid plans of mice and men / Often go awry). Burns supposedly wrote the poem after ploughing up a mouse’s nest – necessary to survive the winter.
Tae a Moose, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough
Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry man’s dominion,
Has broken nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
‘S a sma’ request;
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss’t!
Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell-
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
Thy wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e.
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!