FRANKFORT -- Ask any serious chef to discuss the secret to delicious cooking and they'll first mention the importance of fresh, high quality ingredients.
Obvious enough, the lesson being, you don't need to fix what isn't broke. With Iron Chef-like cooking competitions in mind, it stands to reason that cooks should be judged on their ability to make bad things taste good. Brains, for example, or kidneys, sweetbreads, tongues, testicles and other innermost animal parts. Anyone can do wonders with a $100 filet of Kobe beef, but how about the stomach lining of a sheep? Now there's a challenge.
We ventured south one recent weekend on the occasion of a Robert Burns Supper at Frankfort's Betsie Bay Inn. Scotland's favorite son of poetry, Burns was an enterprising romantic, having capitalized on his prodigious writing talent, like many a good male poet, to eat, drink and father several children by women other than his wife.
So what, you say, and I agree, because Burns also wrote the great poetic tribute to Scotland's national dish. That would be haggis: a pungent concoction of boiled sheep's liver, heart and lung finely chopped and blended with roasted oats and onions -- all stuffed into the aforementioned sheep's stomach. More on the haggis later.
Our dinner invitation asked that we arrive at 6 dressed in Highland formal for an hour of cocktails, appetizers and music before dinner. The best I could do was a plaid blazer to complement my wife's plaid skirt and Italian cheekbones, but we certainly arrived at the appointed hour for single malt. Of the 60 or so other guests, at least a dozen men wore kilts. I was jealous, and told them so.
We mingled and enjoyed passed hors d'oeuvres including Scottish cold Smoked Salmon with horseradish mousse and capers on rye crostini, Caramelized Onion Tarts, and canapés of Champagne-poached shrimp on beds of ginger mousse. Perhaps for the first time, I realized how well good scotch pairs with food.
At 7, the man with the bagpipe led us down a set of stairs to the Algonquin room for dinner. Inn owner and Scot countrywoman Lesley Perkins briefly spoke in her marvelous accent of Burns and haggis and the history of the Supper. She proceeded to introduce Chef Coburn McNaughton, and expressed admiration for how quickly and skillfully he learned the subtlety of Scottish cuisine. In fact, the Inn's regular nightly menu features several Scottish entrees including Shepherd's Pie, a roasted leg of lamb dish named Prosen Hot Pot, and Salmon Dundee served with braised cabbage and orange marmalade/cilantro brose. Remarkably, no menu items exceeded $16.
After bowls of lobster bisque, heavily spiced with paprika, it was haggis time. The piper led a procession of dignitaries through the dining room with McNaughton carrying a huge silver platter bearing the round tummy propped on greens. I remember thinking one of the sources I referenced beforehand described a whole haggis as "a touch of romantic barbarism so dear to the Scottish heart." We all stood and cheered.
As it turns out, the haggis was much more interesting than delicious. The nuttiness of roasted oats balanced the nearly unbearable richness of the meat. True supper-style, it was served as a walnut-sized dollop on a plate carefully assembled with duck confit, salmon in puff pastry, rack of lamb and roasted parsnips. Everything came heavily seasoned so as not to be upstaged by the "great chieftain o' the pudden race."
To be sure, this was a supper plate for the memories. Without question, the Inn deserves recognition as one of northern Michigan's more unique and indulgent experiences and not only for special occasions. Frankfort is the perfect distance for a leisurely Sunday morning drive culminating with crab legs and roast beef at the Inn's brunch.
Betsie Bay Inn, 231 Main, Frankfort; 352-8090.
Matt Sutherland is co-founder of the Traverse Epicurean Classic and author of "Savor Michigan Cookbook: Michigan's Finest Restaurants, Their Recipes & Their Histories." He can be reached at mfsutherland@yahoo.com or care of the Record-Eagle.
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