IF there is one night of the year that most people around the world tend to celebrate, it’s New Year’s Eve, Hogmanay, December the 31st.
It has become a universal celebration of seeing out the old and supervising the incoming new.
As celebrations go, it carries a number of traditions when it comes to food and drink and perhaps this is a good time to check that you have them at hand for Saturday night.
First, quite naturally, would be the haggis, the unofficial national dish of Scotland and a must for Hogmanay.
If one is squeamish about one’s food, one should perhaps not look too closely at what goes into this extraordinary dish.
It is basically a good dollop of sheep’s heart, liver and lungs, minced with onion, oatmeal, suet and spices, all stuffed into a sheep’s stomach (more often than not an ordinary sausage skin these days), and boiled.
It is traditionally served with battered neeps and tatties (mashed swedes and potatoes).
Robert Burns, Scotland’s immortal bard, said of it, “Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie (jolly) face, great chieftain o the puddin’-race!”
Of course, it was Burns who also gave us Auld Lang Syne.
Far from being just a Scottish speciality now, haggis has found favour world-wide and may now be found in Indian restaurants and fast food outlets (as a haggisburger), and there is even a Kosher haggis and a vegetarian one.
Of course, there’s only one beverage to drink with your haggis, and that’s whisky.
Sometime in the 1400s the lairds in the Scottish highlands discovered the pot still and set to with a will, the result was uisgebeatha, Celtic for the water of life.
Today, whisky is drunk world-wide and each year Scotland exports well over a billion bottles of the stuff, and that’s a lot of Scotch.
We have happy memories of both haggis and whisky from various visits to Scotland – haggis and chips on the banks of Loch Ness, patiently waiting for the Monster to appear, and in particular a tiny pub in Glencoe.
This is a haunted and haunting place (remember the massacre of the MacDonalds in 1692?), and our friend and host knew just how to lighten the mood.
He took us to this pub on the moor above Glencoe.
It was about the size of my study with one short wooden bar out of which sprang a brass water tap, one wall rack full of bottles and one barman who, on enquiry, told us that he sold only whisky, and the water was all you could add to it.
It was a grand experience.
We tend to celebrate New Year’s Eve the traditional way and every year this includes watching an ancient recording of the world famous Edinburgh Tattoo.
It includes the very early TV coverage of this extraordinary event, dating back to the 1950s, with performers from all over the world and lots, and I mean lots, of pipes and drums. It’s a must.
And on that celebratory note, Happy New Year, may the year ahead be a good one. Cheers!
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