Haggis, neeps and tatties

Posted by Lianne Gutcher at 14:30 on 29 Jan 2010

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Kabul bounced back quickly after the Jan 18 attacks  and by the next day it was business as usual.

(I want to thank Clare for the incredibly nice comment she left after my post. I am chuffed as hell I have a British Army nurse reading.)

The next 10 days were spent tracking the progress of my haggis as it made its way from Glasgow to Kabul, and having multiple attempts at shortbread in advance of Burns night.

I decided on St Andrew's Day in November I was going to throw a Burns Supper. I also realised after a brief conversation about that time with my new Scottish friend at the Embassy that pulling off such an event may not run smooth.

"I am trying to organise haggis for St Andrew's Day," she said. "My first attempt has not turned out well. Instead of haggis, I've ended up with... Huggies. And I am afraid my other haggis mules are going to be detained in Dubai."

Of course, I could have done what two journalist friends did a couple of years back and made the haggis from scratch. However, I decided instead to throw money at the problem and have a "great chieftain" and a few baby haggis DHLed from Glasgow.

"It's going to be well high by the time it arrives," Facebooked a friend not-so-encouragingly. But Lee from Scottish Food Overseas assured me he sent haggis all over the world - "to Indonesia and Mozambique" -  and he would do marvellous things with icepacks.

Originally I had planned my party for Jan 23 but I had a premonition that all was not well and rescheduled for Jan 27. That was a good move. When the 23rd rolled round the haggis was in Bahrain.

"If I were the haggis, I would stay in Bahrain," Facebooked another friend. "Surely that's a fairly safe place for a haggis..."

It finally arrived in the nick of time on Jan 26 via a stopover at Bagram airbase.

The first haggis I pulled out the delivery box was completely mouldy. I am of the scrape-if-off-and-it-will-be-fine-underneath school of cookery (thanks, Mum) but, really, I  had to bin it. I mean, the people I was feeding are no jessies - they eat bowel-clogging MREs, kebabs off of the street and drink Typhoid-riddled water  - but, still, I did not want to be responsible for a MasCas e-coli situation.

The second haggis wisnae there at a: the veggie haggis failed to arrive. I am going to have words with Lee.

The cat got the third haggis when I was dealing with a power outage so by time 6 o'clock rolled round on the 27th and two friends arrived to peel 9KG of tatties I was quite stressed.

The shortbread had also been a disaster. I was aware that baking at altitude is tricky but I was not prepared for the frustrations of extreme baking. Afghan ovens have a mind of their own. The first batch had to be rescued from a smoke-billowing oven 20 minutes into the hour's cooking time.  It was charred to a cinder. The second batch was a deep, dark mahogany. I wised up and consulted Foodie in a War Zone for tips in advance of attempt three. That enabled me to produce shortbread that was edible but still not up to the usual Gutcher standard. I flung the mixture for the fourth batch in the bin in a fit of fury.

Anyway, thanks to over-ordering,  my Scottish embassy friend (I mean my Scottish friend at the British Embassy; we haven't got Independence yet) who advised on the haggis-cooking, my potato peelers, my neeps heater-uppers, drinks hostesses and a few drams of whisky I managed to serve up a Burns Supper for 30.  Sometimes, I impress myself.

The toasts were performed with aplomb and panache. In fact, I am going to ask BF1 to email me the "Reply from the Lassies" she penned:  an ode to the ex-pat man of Kabul. It deserves a separate post.

My last (uncurfewed) guests left at 2.30 am. Red wine and shortbread were ground into the carpet and one of the sofas was on its back. But I think I proved that a) haggis, even though it sounds disgusting, is actually quite nice; and b) the Scots know how to throw a party.

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