shakespeare_and_haggis ovenbird In an unexpected twist, yesterday’s family dinner with my in-laws turned into a wonderfully bizarre theatrical production of historical and cultural interest. The adults were all sitting around in the living room when my niece and nephew came upstairs saying that they wanted to do a poetry recitation. I thought they meant Dr. Suess or something. No. This is not what they meant at all. My niece whipped out a pile of index cards and gave an impassioned reading (mostly from memory) of The Cremation of Sam McGee. I was seriously impressed. Her inflection was dark and gloomy and she stretched out the last lines for maximum impact: The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee Her brother got in on it next, surprising me again by reciting Shakespeare’s sonnet 130. I was trying not to laugh (though it was from delight) as he read “my mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” My father-in-law followed up with a poem in Doric called The Puddock by John M. Caie, which is about a frog and was mostly incomprehensible. It begins: A puddock sat by the lochan’s brim, An he thocht there was never a puddock like him. He sat on his hurdiese, he waggled his legs, An’ cockpit his heid as he glowered throu’ the seggs. He did it from memory with my niece standing by to provide prompts when he needed a jog. After an invitation for the rest of us to join in I did a reading of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, which I once memorized for grade ten drama class. The performances continued at dinner when the kids insisted on an address to the haggis. We were having a dish called Balmoral Chicken which is wrapped in bacon and stuffed with haggis and is way more delicious than it sounds. My mother-in-law used canned haggis due to a general shortage of anything else outside of Scotland itself, so my father-in-law set the can on the table and prepared to address the can. He was about to get started when we decided we needed to pause briefly to install safety measures. The last time he addressed a haggis there was so much knife waving that the people closest to the head of the table worried about having their own heads severed, so this time we figured armour might be a good idea. An old hockey helmet was procured from the basement and installed on my niece’s head as she was seated closest to my father-in-law. An animated address to the haggis followed. When he reached the following lines: His knife see Rustic-labour dight, An’ cut ye up wi’ ready slight, Trenching your gushing entrails bright, Like onie ditch; there was an exciting moment where he pulled out a literal machete and waved that around dramatically rather than using a carving knife. We all backed up, except my niece who was safe inside her hockey helmet. After dinner we were treated to my mother-in-law reading a recipe for haggis from an 1826 publication of The Cook and Housewife’s Manual by Margaret Dods from Edinburgh. It highlighted exactly why everyone thinks haggis is disgusting. It’s hard to convince people to eat something when the instructions go like this: “Parboil a sheep’s pluck and a piece of good lean beef. Grate half of the liver, and mince the beef, the lights, and the remaining half of the liver. Take of good beef-suet half the weight of this mixture, and mince it with a dozen of small firm onions. Toast some oatmeal before the fire for hours, till it is of a light-brown colour, and perfectly dry. Less than two tea-cupfuls of meal will do for this meat. Spread the mince on a board, and strew the meal lightly over it, with a high seasoning of pepper, salt, and a little Cayenne, well mixed. Have a haggis-baff perfectly clean, and see that there be no thin part in it, else your whole labour will be lost by its bursting. Put in the meat with as much good beef-gravy, or strong broth, as wilt make it a thick stew. Be careful not to fill the bag too full, but allow the meat room to swell. add the juice of a lemon, or a little good vinegar ; press out the air, and sew up the bag; prick it with a large needle, when it first swells, to prevent bursting; let it boil, but not violently, for three hours.” So there you have it. An evening of poetry and machete waving and warnings about how to keep your haggis from exploding. It was exactly the sort of weirdness that delights me to no end. It felt like the best accidental birthday present I could have received. 250713 what's it to you? who go blather from