A Burns supper is a celebration of the life and poetry of the poet Robert Burns, author of many Scots poems. The suppers are normally held on the poet’s birthday, 25 January, sometimes also known as Robert Burns Day (or Robbie Burns Day[1] or Rabbie Burns Day) or Burns Night (Scots: Burns Nicht), although they may in principle be held at any time of the year.
Burns suppers are most common in Scotland and Northern Ireland, however, there has been a surge in Burns’ Night celebrations in the UK events industry seeing the evening being celebrated outside their traditional confines of Burns Clubs, Scottish Societies, expatriate Scots… There is a particularly strong tradition of them in southern New Zealand’s main city Dunedin, of which Burns’ nephew Thomas Burns was a founding father.
The first suppers were held in memoriam at Ayrshire at the end of the 18th century by Robert Burns’ friends on 21 July, the anniversary of his death, and have been a regular occurrence ever since. The first Burns club was founded in Greenock in 1801 by merchants born in Ayrshire, some of whom had known Burns. They held the first Burns supper on what they thought was his birthday, 29 January 1802, but in 1803 they discovered in Ayr parish records that his date of birth was 25 January 1759.[2] Since then, suppers have been held on 25 January.
Burns suppers may be formal or informal. Both typically include haggis (a traditional Scottish dish celebrated by Burns in Address to a Haggis), Scotch whisky, and the recitation of Burns’s poetry. Formal dinners are hosted by organisations such as Burns clubs, the Freemasons, or St Andrews Societies and occasionally end with dancing when ladies are present. Formal suppers follow a standard format.
Fuente: Wikipedia.