Blood Harmonies

Haggis is a meal, for a’ that

I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of ritual lately in the course of working on my new novel, Blood Harmonies.  One of the central characters, Zoe Mendel, has been brought up in a rarefied world, steeped in tradition, both public and private.  In trying to unpick exactly what is driving Zoe’s private rituals, I started thinking about some of the rituals of my own life.

Yesterday was the fifth Burns Night we have celebrated in England, and the culinary busywork that invariably goes hand in glove with this gave me a lot of time to ponder this idea.  One thing which strikes me is that with each passing year, this day take on greater importance for us than it ever had while we were still living in Scotland.  Although we’ve always done the traditional full bhoona of haggis, neeps and tatties, followed by cranachan and a wee bit too much malt, it wasn’t until we moved to the South East that we began luring others to join us, or indeed, ever recited the Address to a Haggis.

I suppose it could be a case of absence making the heart steel itself against going too native.  It’s for this reason perhaps that notions of tradition and home take on added resonance when you’re far away.  As though the concerted act of pausing to mark time passing becomes a way of reminding ourselves who we used to be, a means of bridging the gap of distance travelled.

Or at least that’s how it feels in my case anyway.  And as I thought about this, it struck me how few of my own rituals have anything to do with the future.  Apart from those surrounding New Year, they are largely about the past, which could well be the clue I’ve been looking for.

Which is not to say that our rituals themselves can’t move with the times.  Our Burns tradition is already considerably less orthodox that it once was, and this in just five years.  The reasons for this were initially logistical.  Our first house down here had a tiny kitchen and so our Burns supper needed a bit of re-engineering to make it easier to mass-cater.  The neeps and tatties are now prepared a day in advance, and layered with the haggis in individual filo pastry parcels, which can then be easily reheated and quickly plated with a pool of whisky cream sauce.  It’s probably about as far as you can get from the traditional Burns Night menu while still technically qualifying.  Nevertheless, this is now our tradition, and one that’s quickly caught on.

Since first coming here my husband has found a fantastic group of nine like-minded photographers.  Coincidentally, each of them is either Scottish, or Canadian, or is married to a Scot or a Canadian.  As well as working together on a range of inspiring projects, they also now function as a sort of roving dial-a-party.  Although the first time I served up our eccentric Burns offering, I half-expected to hear grumbling from purists, we now actually get requests for a repeat of the same menu.

All tradition has to start somewhere, and last night saw the birth of another.  Our friend Miko (Canadian) kindly offered to make up some canapés.  Based on past experience, we knew they would be divine.  But she outdid herself by creating the magnificent Deconstructed Scotch Eggs you see here.

Sadly, the photo was taken by me, and so doesn’t come anywhere near doing them justice.  They are mini filo tartlets, filled with a gooey lemon and thyme hollandaise, sausages which were liberated from their skins, and sliced quails eggs.  This platter disappeared in moments, as did its sequel. All traditions have to start somewhere, and it’s already become impossible to imagine a Burns supper where Deconstructed Scotch Eggs play no part.

Continuing this theme, this was the year my husband decreed it henceforth traditional that someone other than him delivers the Address to the Haggis.  The mantle was initially foisted on a photographer called James, who hails from the North East of Scotland.  James, however, fell unexpectedly drunk the night before at another Burns Night, and so was not yet fit for public appearance as of last night (one cannot help but feel Burns would see this as proud tribute to his legacy).

Leaping into the breach instead, was the fine bekilted figure of a Scot you see here, our friend Lee.  Again, the photo was taken by me, so fails to do the subject justice.  Lee’s rendition of the poem, however, more than did Robbie proud.

With a passing nod to recognisable tradition, there was cranachan for afters, followed by the traditional cracking open of various malts, as well as wild tales of bravery, ingenuity and young love (shout going out to Cameron!), and much shrieking with laughter, before everyone crawled off in search of a sofa to call their own. But for all the frivolity, of which there was no shortage, I wonder if I was the only person to detect a hint of underlying reverence normally not found at our table.  A collective sense perhaps that this little slice of tradition we’d gathered for, far from home, was a way of reassuring ourselves that we still belong.

When Suzie (a Speyside lass, born and bred) raised her glass to say, ‘Here’s tae us, Wha’s like us, Damn few and they’re a’ deid’ I was struck by the ripple of nodding heads around the table.  Those words have been spoken countless times before, by us, our parents, their parents and theirs before them as far back as Neil Oliver only knows.  But it is precisely for this reason that they can still move drunken folk the world over to haver on about how much they mean to each other.

This is the power ritual holds for me.  Even simple, private rituals no one else notices, like returning to places where people I have loved walked, or the preparing of meals which are somehow symbolic, or oft-repeated phrases whispered under my breath. I can’t completely explain why, but the older I get, the more comfort I take in knowing I am doing something which has been done in the same way by generations before me.

The more I pluck away at it, I think perhaps it has to do with the way childlessness leaves you partially untethered in time, secured to the past, but not the future.  Having grown up in a big family with grandmothers who both made huge impressions in their own way, and with a mother who herself had four sisters, I am rooted in a profound sense of the female role, and so have a grasp of my place on a continuum that runs daughter, grand-daughter, sister, wife, daughter-in-law, and latterly, auntie.

But things aren’t quite so straightforward for Zoe Mendel, the central character in this new novel I’m working on (you see? this was actually building to a kind of point the whole time).  Zoe has had these vital connections severed at a young age when her mother was killed.  She was raised by two grieving uncles, who not only weren’t on speaking terms, but who were colluding in a conspiracy of silence about the events surrounding their sister’s death.  As a result Zoe missed out on the sort of vital cultural transmission which takes place at the end of apron strings.   She has only the vaguest memories of her mother, and can’t even be sure if she is actually remembering, or simply picturing things she’s heard.

So instead of using ritual as an act of remembering, Zoe uses it as a means of trying to forge connections between herself and her dead mother.   What is the nature of these rituals, and what, if any, impact do they have on Zoe’s fate?  If you want to know the answer to these questions, then stay tuned, as I am sure this is something I will be doing more thinking aloud about in weeks and months to come.

For now, all I can say for sure is that Zoe and her rituals, and the role of tradition in her life are just some of the things I was entertaining myself with as I prepped a mountain of neeps and tatties to go with last night’s haggis – which in itself is a tradition that keeps on giving for days to come. As Gordo proved earlier today by seeing off a reconstructed Burns supper of haggis, neeps, tatties and poached egg for brunch (having wisely arranged his first meeting of the morning after the Burns’ night before for five o’clock this evening.)

Before I leave you in peace, here’s one final Burns contribution Miko sent along this morning…

Gordon Brown was being shown around a new hospital in Glasgow by one of the doctors.  On their way down the corridor they glanced in at the first room saw a patient at the dinner table who was salivating and could be heard proclaiming in a loud voice:

“Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,

Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!

Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,

Painch, tripe, or thairm:

Weel are ye wordy of a grace

As lang’s my arm.”

Gordon raised his eyebrows but said nothing.  As they entered the ward they saw another patient who is down on his hands and knees and appeared to be addressing the skirting board:

“Wee sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,

O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an chase thee,

Wi murdering pattle!”

Gordon looked round at the doctor with an astonished expression, but the doctor politely ignored the PM’s countenance and motioned him over to the head nurse’s desk.  The old boiler of a nurse was there working away trying to ignore the patient standing next to her who was gazing lovingly in her direction, reciting:

“O, my luve is like a red, red rose,

That’s newly sprung in June.

O, my luve is like a melodie,

That’s sweetly play’d in tune.”

The PM turned to the doctor and said

“So I assume this is the wing where you keep the psychiatric patients?”

“Not at all Prime Minister,” replied the doctor.

“This is the Burns unit.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 21:22 and is filed under It's dark o'clock in the morning again. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.