Those of you familiar with these missives know that they often begin with a delightfully meandering introductory paragraph or two leading charmingly who knows where until eventually it links to the details of an upcoming show by Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room. Well today’s note will be different; I’m going to get right to the point. Sunday, January 25th, is Robbie Burns Day – and as we have done for over 20 years – Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room will be celebrating with an extravaganza at the legendary Free Times Café on College, just west of Spadina.

As part of the extravaganza, and in addition to more bagpipe tunes than you can shake a stick at, there will be food – most notably haggis. I will note that in my experience the prospect of a haggis dinner does not necessarily excite people. Indeed, there seems to be a general aversion to haggis, particularly among those who’ve never actually tried it. Concerns around haggis tend to focus on the fact that it’s in a sheep’s stomach. Two points about this; one, while traditionally haggis was encased in a sheep stomach that is no longer the case(ing). Two, what’s so repugnant about a sheep stomach when we fetishize pork belly and make that the most delicious thing one could possibly eat.

I think the issue with haggis is not what’s in it (or around it), but rather the name. Words starting with “hag” generally do not have particularly pleasing connotations. There’s the word hag itself, defined as “an ugly old woman.” As well, no one wants to look haggard, except of course Merle Haggard (the exception that proves the rule). If we look specifically at food, hagberries are bitter fruit associated with witches, and hagfish is the only living animal with a skull but no vertebral column and is also known as slime fish – yum yum.

So, if the problem isn’t so much what’s in haggis but the name haggis, then the solution is a rebrand. One of the best ways to rebrand something is to give it an interesting non-English name. Now, of course, haggis is a Gaelic word so it’s already not English, but we’re still all hung up on the hag part. So why don’t we turn to French – the language of love. In French haggis is panse de brebis farcie. Doesn’t that sound delicious – yes it does. Problem solved.

Now that we’ve got this straightened out let me give you the details about the Robbie Burns show. The evening will begin around 8pm with a subset of the Living Room, Gordon’s Acoustic Parlour, playing a delightful set of tunes for about an hour to an hour and a half. At around 9:30, the peace of the Free Times will be disturbed, if not shattered, by the arrival of the bagpipes and the drum. At that point the evening will shift to bagpipe tunes (from around the world), highland dancing, and a meal of panse de brebis farcie.

Robbie Burns is always a popular evening, so you probably want to get there early to make sure you get a seat. And on top of all that, if you can believe it, there is no cover – except over the panse de brebis farcie.

Hope to see you there.

PS: I can tell you from experience that shaking a stick at bagpipes only makes them play longer so please leave your sticks at home.