What to serve when you can’t stomach haggis

How many of you out there pay tribute to our bonny buddies and their poet father Robert Burns on this day? If there’s a celebration to be had, why not embrace it, I say?! Scotland’s rich heritage and traditions deserve to reach far, especially as far as Yorkshire. And especially when it involves food.

I was first introduced to haggis by my Scottish in-laws some years ago during a Burns Supper knees up. I haven’t looked back and indulge in the excuse to eat the delicacy every year on Burns Night, complete with neeps and tatties and a wee dram.

But if you can’t stomach the stomach, what else can you eat on Burns Night to ensure you have a wholly Celtic celebration for old Rabbie’s birthday?

Alternative Burns Night recipes:

• ‘Auld Reekie’ cock-a-leekie soup – with a name harking back to the days when the recipe was made in Edinburgh’s coal fires, this version of the traditional soup contains a little celebratory kick – Scotch whisky!
• Arbroath smokie – a very special style of smoked haddock
• Bridie – similar to a Cornish pasty, but with a lighter pastry and no potato
• Cullen skink – a rich soup made with smoked Finnan haddock, onions and potato
• Lorne sausage – also known as ‘square sausage’, a slighter spicier – and flatter – version of regular sausages
• Scotch pie – a double crust pie, also eaten a lot in England
• Selkirk bannock – a flat cake. Think along the lines of a scone
• Tablet – A very sweet style of confectionary, similar to fudge
• To drink – if you’re not up to the hard stuff, treat yourself to a glass of Irn Bru instead!