We spent most of January in Edinburgh (I know, I’m a little behind on my blogging), so we got a chance to try quite a few of the city’s restaurants. That is, when I wasn’t busy using our apartment’s induction hob or sampling oddly-named desserts from Marks & Spencer. Here are the notable eateries, favorites first.
As I mentioned in the comments of my castle post, tourist attractions in Edinburgh tend to fall into one of two categories: free, and ridiculously overpriced. Travelers on a budget can focus in on the free sights, as there are plenty. I chose to do a lot of both, because I was in Edinburgh for a long time, and because the average price per attraction is still pretty low if you average the free stuff with the expensive stuff. This post covers my favorites of the free sights. » Read the full post
One of the only things I knew about Edinburgh before I landed here was that it has a castle. And indeed it does, way up on a hill in the middle of town. I’d heard it can get quite crowded, being Edinburgh’s most popular tourist attraction, but lucky for us that’s not true on a cold, snowy day in January. » Read the full post
Other hit songs of the evening included “I can be your haggis, baby,” “Like a haggis (touched for the very first time),” and the very popular “(can’t read my, can’t read my, can’t a-read-a-my) Haggis Face.” Neeps and tatties* were mentioned in there somewhere, too.
What’s your favorite song about haggis?
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* Neeps and tatties = Scottish for parsnips and potatoes, ie, typical accompaniments to haggis.
Yesterday evening we were honored to be guests at a traditional Scottish Burns Night, the essential ingredients for which are haggis, whisky (are you Scots out there appreciating my spelling?), and a little poetry. The men in kilts were just an added bonus.
We learned a lot about Scottish culture while sipping on the delicious, warming whisky, important facts such as what kind of shoes are worn with a kilt, why haggis is better than salmon, and a variety of uses for the word ‘pudding’.
You’ve never seen a folk more enamored with their national dish than the Scots and their haggis. This love of a dish based on sheep entrails is hard for a vegetarian like myself to understand. But indeed, the Scots consider haggis so important that they want to make sure that everyone gets a chance to partake: there’s even a vegetarian version (entrail-free, naturally).
Without further ado, I give you the dramatic interpretation of Robert Burn’s poem ‘To A Haggis‘:
I wasn’t able to coax anyone into proclaiming ‘If it’s not Scottish it’s crap!’ (mainly due to a lack of concerted effort on my part), but there’s always next year… lucky for me Burns Night is celebrated each and every January 25th.
