Kevin Ludeke on the bagpipes. Photo by Scott Oliver

Scottish Events in Costa Rica - Burns Night Supper. Haggis or Craggis?

Vicky Longland

Over 160 guests gathered at the elegant Costa Rica Country Club to celebrate the life and poetry of Scotland's best-loved bard, Robert Burns.

If you think it quite an achievement to find so many people in tiny Costa Rica to honor some long-dead poet, don't be fooled. A Burns Night Supper is anything but dull and dusty.

Dull & dusty? No! But maybe this couple are having too much fun? Photo by Scott Oliver

Actually, Michael Cannon, the Laddie appointed to give the Toast to the Lassies after supper phrased it perfectly:

Here in the Highlands of far Costa Rica,
We're brought together to fill up a beaker
Of Scottish Good Cheer, and Imperial beer,
To listen to pipes, and watch a few types,
Doing Celtic flings, and funny Scottish things,
In their kilts, skirts, and trews,
As they drink down their booze,
Eating the haggis and singing auld lang syne,
While all the time quaffing more wine.
Would Burns have approved? - No doubt he would.

But... the Supper involves *haggis and they just don't grow on Costa Rican trees. On this occasion, as before, the day, or rather evening, was saved by Claudio Pacheco whose meat product company created a worthy replica of the national dish by producing enough C(osta)R(ica)aggis - craggis - for all, served with the traditional champit tatties and bashed neeps (creamed potatoes and turnips, to you and me).

A big thanks to our Costa Rican friend Claudio Pacheco for making the haggis. Photo' by Claudio Pacheco.

Like more than a few at our Supper here, "Rabbie" Burns' works may not be familiar to you, but almost everyone has heard or sung Auld Lang Syne at the end of some festive gathering. That was his, as was a prolific output of vernacular poems and songs that made a huge impact on the Scottish literary scene of his day, and ultimately came to be admired the world over.

So what is it about his works that's so special? Burns was a country man, son of a poor farmer, a trade at which he also failed repeatedly. He considered emigrating to the West Indies but published his first book of poems in a last-ditch attempt to raise funds. It was immediately, if surprisingly, successful... and the legend was born.

Burns was a man of many passions: he loved the countryside where he grew up and its people; he also adored women - lots of them! My love is like a red, red rose is a line that most of us can quote even if the rest of the verses are a mystery. His death at 37 is also shrouded in some mystery, though sources often quote a combination of hard labour, womanising and alcohol. More prosaically, it was probably heart failure resulting from an childhood bout of rheumatic fever.

Our own Ian Young plays the part of Hamish McTavish, Haggis farmer (??) Photo by Scott Oliver

Small wonder that close friends decided to throw a celebratory dinner in his memory creating a ritual that is followed to this day, over two hundred years on. Certainly our Tico Burns' Supper embraced the evening in fine spirit, both musical, poetical and liquid.

With a bottle of Chivas Regal (thanks to Ron Centenario S.A.) plus wine on every table, the party was bound to swing! We duly applauded the 'craggis' as it was piped in to Kevin Ludeke's bagpipes where it was addressed, and stabbed through its heart with gusto by Andrew MacMillen. The Supper's organizer, Ian Young then blessed it and the meal with the Selkirk Grace.

Tania Brown plays Celtic music on the fiddle. Photo by Scott Oliver

As you see, there is a whole array of ceremony to the proceedings.

The Laddie's Toast was duly returned by Lassie, Caroline Kennedy, who toasted "... our laddies, our menfolk, our braw Scottish knights" before Tanya Brown took the stage with some fine Celtic fiddling, after which the floor was declared open season for some enthusiastic if at times almost anarchic attempts at the group reels and jigs stoically "conducted" by David and Karen Garrett.

Jonathan Davies' brother Mark has trouble saying "When" to the Chivas Regal. Photo by Scott Oliver

And just who invited that Scottish equivalent of a Grumpy Old Man, Hamish MacTavish, claiming to be from the Highlands of Heredia and commandeering the stage with his tammy, crook and sporran and growling out tales of northern wit that had the nerve to make us laugh...

Who says Costa Rica doesn't have everything? And at only $30 per head for an evening with all the trimmings, it was certainly affordable fun. Something else the Scots would approve of...

Written by Vicky Longland - Vicky has spent all her adult life in Latin and Central America originally as head of the translation department for an international human development organisation and currently working as a freelance translator and writer for several national and world-wide publications, specialising in people's issues, the environment and lifestyles.

May not be highland dancing but Ron & Marion from Kelso, Scotland are having fun. Photo by Scott Oliver

* If you would like to learn more about this famous Scottish dish, check out this great haggis website here.

You can see the best collection of Robert Burns related music here.