The Burns Supper is an institution of Scottish life. Suppers can range from an informal gathering of friends to a huge, formal dinner full of pomp and circumstance.
The Scottish flag is often displayed at Burns' Night celebrations. It is known as the Saltire and consists of a rectangular blue background with thick white bars on the diagonals. The diagonals form a cross that represents Saint Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland.
At Burns' Night events, many men wear kilts and women may wear shawls, skirts or dresses made from their family tartan. A tartan was originally a woolen cloth with a distinctive pattern made by using colors of weft and warp when weaving. Particular patterns and combinations of colors were associated with different areas, clans and families. Tartan patterns are now printed on various materials.
Many types of food are associated with Burns' Night. These include: cock-a-leekie soup (chicken and leek soup); haggis; neeps (mashed turnips or swedes) and tatties (mashed potatoes); cranachan (whipped cream mixed with raspberries and served with sweet oat wafers); and bannocks (a kind of bread cooked on a griddle). Whisky is the traditional drink.
For more information and recipes go here.
Apart from eating and enjoying the traditional Scottish dishes, it is also customary to recite some poems and songs such as The Selkirk Grace, 'A man's a man for a' that' and Address to a Haggis, being the last song they sing Auld Lang Syne , of course. I would post one of Burns' poems but I'm afraid they're too difficult as they are not in English but in Scots.
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