Moray chef investigates what Robert Burns ate for his own supper
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Ahead of Burns Night tomorrow, here's a look at the man behind the poetry as well as the times in which he lived.
Liz Ashworth is a food writer and chef who lives in Lhanbryde.
She writes:
We tend to think of Robert Burns as a handsome, romantic poet and raconteur, but forget that he was first and foremost a farmer.
‘My father was a farmer to plough and sow, to reap and mow,
my father bred me early, O’:
For one he said, to labour bred, was a match for fortune fairly O.’
At the time of Robert’s birth – January 25, 1759 – the system of agriculture had changed little since the Middle Ages. It was heavily dependent on local labour, each farm supplying only a small surrounding area.
As the country became industrialised the need for more efficient, productive farming methods spawned change in farming practice.
Robert Burns lived at the beginning of this revolution. He was to see the open runrig strips of land consolidated into larger enclosed fields to grow crops and graze animals.
This led to planned land management involving crop rotation and use of fertilisers on the land.
Improvements in communications brought about by building a better road network not only allowed produce to be sent to markets further away but also encouraged more travel and interaction among the population.
Robert’s first home was a single storey cottage affectionately known as ‘the auld clay biggin.’
The family’s space was a living room and kitchen from which a door opened into the barn and cowshed. The floors were made of stone slabs, the thick walls from lime covered clay, the roof was thatched.
There is little information about the kitchen save that it contained a box bed in which Robert was born.
The kitchens of the day were generally furnished with a large dresser where food was prepared and dishes of cream left to settle before being made into butter.
Other ‘furniture’ included a girnel for oatmeal, a kist for valuables, perhaps a butter churn, and pails known as luggies (from the descriptive Scots dialect word ‘lugg’ meaning to carry) and a spinning wheel beside which stood a pot of stale urine to fix colour in wool dying. Hygiene rules were more lax in those days!
Bringing life and warmth to the kitchen was the fire, built under a lum or chimney and set into the wall in such a way that it was possible to sit round three sides on benches or settles as they were called.
In the warmest, driest place, the ingle neuk, next to the gable end sat the saut bucket (salt bucket). Over the fire hung a metal contraption known as a swee; a large hook device which suspended cooking equipment over the heat of the fire.
A large black pot simmered soups and stews while a flat metal plate or girdle baked bannocks and scones with a brander besides for toasting and grilling.
The Burns family ate what they produced from the land, a cow gave milk, hens eggs and sheep wool for clothing. Only as a last resort or to celebrate a special occasion were animals slaughtered for the pot. Although Robert and his siblings did not experience true famine, they most certainly knew people who had.
Despite of improvements in farming, the weather still caused grief. In 1782, a cold wet summer gave way to early frosts and the crops were left green and standing in the fields.
In June 1783 the eruption of Icelandic volcano Laki lasted until February 1784 the aftermath of which caused a drop in global temperatures and subsequent crop failures in Europe. Following which early snow and poor seed took their toll in 1784 and 1785:
‘May Boreas never thresh you rigs,
Nor kick your ruckles off their legs,
Sendin the stuff o’er muirs and haggs
Like driving wrack:
But may the tapmast grain that wags,
Come to the sack.’
Robert’s parents did their best to educate the family and this he pursued avidly often reading a book during mealtimes. His was a life of unremitting toil which may have played a part in poor heart health which eventually caused his early death at the age of 37.
Robert’s mother, Agnes, was a hard working farmer’s wife, thrifty housekeeper and excellent cook.
Unfortunately Robert’s wife Jean Armour, not coming from a farming background lacked those skills. Wisely she remained at Mossgeil to learn from her when Robert moved his brood to Ellisland farm in 1788.
Ellisland farmhouse was a big improvement on the ‘auld clay biggin,’ boasting a parlour where meals were taken and separate farm buildings and a milk house. Milk was important to generate cash income, responsibility for milking, cheese and butter making fell to the ‘guidewife!’
In 1788 a friend of Burns, Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop Cheese, loved his poetry so much she gifted him an Ayrshire cow. He knew the breed because his mother made cheese from the milk of Ayrshire cows whilst they lived in Alloway, where Burns was born.
The single cow gave him an idea. He bought more dairy cattle from Ayrshire and his wife Jean, well trained by her mother-in-law, looked after the cows, milking them, churning butter and making cheese.
A family friend, Jessie Lewars, said of Burns that "When he chanced to come home and find no dinner ready, he was never in the least irritated, but would address himself with the greatest cheerfulness to any makeshift set before him.
"They generally had abundance of good Dunlop cheese, sent them by their Ayrshire friends. The poet would sit down to bread and cheese, with his book by his side and seem to the casual visitor as happy as a courtier at the feast of Kings."
In dramatic contrast to his farming life, Robert was feted and dined in style during his visits to Edinburgh. No wonder he went into raptures when he was served haggis during a meal at his friend Andrew Melville’s house and without more ado penned the ‘Address to a Haggis’ in honour of the occasion.
Little did he imagine that, in years to come, those words would be repeated at Burns Suppers the world to celebrate his life and work.
Each January we remember this remarkable man inspired by his working life and mother nature , who was greatly moved by the plight of his fellow man. He had the talent and courage of his convictions to pen his thoughts with direct, pithy, wit and wisdom written in verse and song.
His gratitude for the food he ate still rings true today written in the words of The Selkirk Grace .
Some hae meat and cannae eat
Some would eat that want it
But we hae meat and we can eat
Sae the Lord be thankit!
And his fervent wish for equality and peaceful living in the telling words of ‘A Man’s a Man for a’ that’
Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a’ that,
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth
Shall bear the gree an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s comin yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man the warld o’er
Shall brithers be for a’ that.
