Nothing says Burns supper like haggis and belly dancing
Robert Burns purists got a swift uppercut to the jaw this week when a belly dancer helped celebrate the Scottish poet’s Jan. 25 birthday.
“Burns had a great sense of humour,” said Harmeet Kapur, New Asian Village restaurant owner.
“I know Scots rank him right up there, even ahead of Sean Connery, and call him their greatest son.”
Kapur, who hosted the celebratory supper at his Saskatchewan Drive restaurant, said Burns was a cultural genius, a poet who captured the Scots’ perpetual struggle: persecution, comradeship, nationalism and great victories in the face of adversity.
“He would surely chuckle at the thought of a belly dancer being at his birthday party,” he said.
The skirl of the pipes Burns, born in Alloway, near Ayr, in 1759, would have certainly enjoyed watching Ken and Lori Blyth pipe in the haggis.
The couple, members of the Edmonton and District Pipe Band, are of Scottish ancestry and can play some 50 tunes together.
“We had haggis at our wedding reception 17 years ago,” said Lori. “Many people are reluctant to try haggis. But most did at our wedding and thought it very good. After all, it is just a form of sausage.”
The gathering, as is traditional, rose to its feet and clapped in the haggis.
The buzz in the crowd was that Kapur was to ride in and welcome guests astride a horse. He did, but it was a carved wooden horse from an old fort in Rajasthan.
“I bought it during one of my annual trips home,” he said. “My dream for many years has been to ride in on a horse and wave to a crowd.”
Jacobean sword did the trick The address to haggis, a traditional ceremony where homage is paid to the haggis in the words of Burns, was performed by Andrew Walls.
A kilted Walls, who grew up in the Glen Org whiskey distillery near Inverness, where his mother was a guide, slashed the Old Country Meats and Deli haggis open with a heavy basket-hilt sword.
“It’s a replica of a Jacobean sword from the days of Burns,” he said.
Walls has studied the poet’s work for 20 years and has a suitable quote for every eventuality.
“Burns expressed the human condition better than anyone,” he said. “He was the son of a peasant farmer and was a keen observer of both people and nature. He gave and still gives hope to the poor and oppressed. His works have been translated into more than 200 languages.”
Burns enjoyed the modern equivalent of “stardom” and Scottish immigrants carried the Burns supper tradition around the world.
Poet William Wordsworth and American writer John Steinbeck were among those influenced by Burns.
The Russians called him “the people’s poet” and printed a Burns commemorative stamp in 1956 on the 160th anniversary of his death. A little Bhaji or pakora, sir? Culinary consultant Kevin Ostapek helped New Asian Village chef
Gagan Singh prepare the supper, which had a subtle Indian accent.
The lamb was roasted in Indian spices and served with a marsala wine; potatoes were flavoured with ginger, garlic and cumin and the fish had notes of lemon, cardamom and Cointreau. There were also pakoras — vegetables dipped in a spicy batter and deep fried — and bhaji.
“Vinod Varshney, the program chair at NAIT’S School of Hospitality, called the next day to say it was the best meal he’d ever had,” said Kapur. The five-course meal was washed down by India’s Amrut malt scotch.
Lawyer Jim Scott, whose birthday is also on Jan, 25, and his son Jeffrey Scott were the stars of a small auction held to support the Diabetes Society. The lawyer spent $225 on a bottle of Charles Smith Ovide Cabernet-syrah wine valued at $100. His son shelled out $450 for a New Asian meal for four with Amrut whiskey.
Dream of helping the poor Kelci Tookey, 19, who plans to take a group of 14 friends to the Dominican Republic in July to help build houses for people living in a slum area regularly flooded by sewage, raised $26,000 Wednesday at her sold-out Building Dreams fundraiser at Festival Place.
“My sister Stacey Tookey, an Emmy-nominated choreographer, held a dance class and raised another $1,000 for us,” said Tookey. “But by the time we have added in our airfares to Toronto and some other extras, I think we need to raise a total of $44,000. We are selling bracelets and T-shirts and have other fundraisers planned. We are determined to make this trip.”