Burns 250th Anniversary Supper

25 January 2009

Everyone that was at this event still remembers it. During the summer prior to this momentous event, the Home Office refused to grant a visa to a retired Ghurkha soldier who needed heart treatment. Joanna Lumley led the nation in outrage. Coincidentally, one of our Nepalese waiters returned from his visit home with a family recipe for bhuton, sheep’s heart, liver and lungs, mixed with barley, onion, ginger, garlic and spices, then stuffed into the stomach and steamed. 

So, at our Burns Supper we featured the original haggis from Nepal, piped in by a Ghurkha piper. The haggis was addressed and after supper the actor John Murtagh (“Braveheart”) enacted Burns’ Holy Willie’s Prayer, followed by a tasting of single malts from Scotland and India led by Peter McCombie MW. All proceeds were for the benefit of the Ghurkha Welfare Trust.