Scottish cuisine

Scottish cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with Scotland. It has distinctive attributes and recipes of its own, but also shares much with other British and wider European cuisine as a result of local, regional, and continental influences—both ancient and modern.
Scotland's natural larder of vegetables, fruit, oats, fish and other seafood, dairy products and game is the chief factor in traditional Scottish cooking, with a high reliance on simplicity, without the use of rare, and historically expensive, spices found abroad.
History
Scotland, with its temperate climate and abundance of indigenous game species, has provided food for its inhabitants for millennia. The wealth of seafood available on and off the coasts provided the earliest settlers with sustenance. Agriculture was introduced, and primitive oats quickly became the staple.
Medieval
From the journeyman down to the lowest cottar, meat was an expensive commodity, and would be consumed rarely. For the lower echelons of mediaeval Scots, it was the products of their animals rather than the beasts themselves which provided nourishment.
This is evident today in traditional Scots fare, with its emphasis on dairy produce. A typical meal in medieval Scotland consisted of a pottage of herbs and roots (and when available some meat, usually seafood, or stock for flavouring), with bread and eggs, cheese or kelp when possible.
Scotland was a feudal state for the greater part of the second millennium. This put certain restrictions on what one was allowed to hunt, therefore to eat. In the halls of the great men of the realm, one could expect venison, boar, various fowl and songbirds, expensive spices (pepper, cloves, cinnamon, etc.), and the meats of domesticated species.
Before Sir Walter Raleigh's introduction of the potato to the British Isles, the Scots' main source of carbohydrate was bread made from oats or barley. Wheat was generally difficult to grow because of the damp climate. Food thrift was evident from the earliest times, with excavated middens displaying little evidence of anything but the toughest bones. All parts of an animal were used.
The mobile nature of Scots society required food that should not spoil quickly. It was common to carry a small bag of oatmeal that could be transformed into a basic porridge or oatcakes using a girdle (griddle). It is thought that Scotland's national dish, haggis, originated in a similar way: A small amount of offal or low-quality meat, carried in the most inexpensive bag available, a sheep or pig's stomach. It has also been suggested that this dish was introduced by Norse invaders who were attempting to preserve their food during the long journey from Scandinavia.
Early Modern period
During the Early Modern period, French cuisine played a role in Scottish cookery due to cultural exchanges brought about by the "Auld Alliance". When Mary, Queen of Scots returned to Scotland, she brought an entourage of French staff who revolutionised Scots cooking and created some of Scotland's unique food terminology. These terms include Ashet (assiette), a large platter; Cannel (cannelle), cinnamon; Collop (escalope); Gigot, French for a leg of mutton; Howtowdie (hétoudeau), a boiling fowl in Old French; Syboe (ciboule), spring onion.
18th and 19th centuries
With the growth of sporting estates and the advent of land enclosure in the 18th century, harvesting Scotland's larder became an industry. The railways further expanded the scope of the market, with Scots grouse at a premium (as today) on English menus shortly after the Glorious Twelfth.
In the 19th century, Charlotte, Lady Clark of Tillypronie collected recipes throughout her life by asking society hostesses or cooks, and then testing them for herself at Tillypronie (Aberdeenshire). These were published posthumously in 1909 as The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie.
20th and 21st centuries
The availability of certain foodstuffs in Scotland, in common with the other parts of the United Kingdom, suffered during the 20th century. Rationing during the two World Wars, as well as large-scale industrial agriculture, limited the diversity of food available to the public. Imports from the British Empire and beyond did, however, introduce new foods to the Scottish public.
During the 19th and 20th centuries there was large-scale immigration to Scotland from Italy, and later from the Middle East, India, and Pakistan. These cultures have influenced Scots cooking dramatically. The Italians reintroduced the standard of fresh produce, and the later comers introduced spice. With the enlargement of the European Union in the early years of the 21st century, there has been an increase in the population of Eastern European descent, from Poland in particular. A number of speciality restaurants and delicatessens catering for the various new immigrants have opened in the larger towns and cities.
Dishes and foods
These dishes and foods are traditional to or originate in Scotland.
Cereals
Brose—an uncooked porridge
Porridge
Sowans—a sour oat porridge
Skirlie—oatmeal fried with fat, onions and seasonings
Soups
Cullen skink—a thick soup made of smoked haddock, potato and onion
Baud bree—hare broth
Cock-a-leekie soup—leeks, peppered chicken stock, often with rice or barley
Game soup—a soup made of meat products found in game
Hairst bree (or hotch potch)—one-pot dish, usually with lamb or mutton, seasonal vegetables
Partan bree—seafood soup with crab and rice
Powsowdie—a Scottish sheep's heid (head) broth or soup
Scotch broth—soup with barley, lamb or mutton, and root vegetables
Fish and seafood
Arbroath smokies—a type of smoked haddock, a speciality of the town of Arbroath in Angus
Cabbie claw (cabelew)—young cod in white sauce with chopped egg white
Crappit heid—fish head stuffed with oats, suet and liver
Eyemouth pale—cold-smoked haddock with light golden hue, subtle smoke flavour
Finnan haddie—another cold-smoked haddock
Kippers—a whole herring butterflied, salted or pickled, and cold-smoked
Kedgeree—rice, smoked haddock, eggs, parsley, butter or cream
Rollmops—pickled herring, rolled up with onion, gherkin or green olive, with pimento (on a stick)
Scampi
Smoked salmon
Tatties and herring
Fish and chips—fried fish in crispy batter, served with chips.
Meat, poultry and game
Ayrshire bacon—specially cured
Black pudding, red pudding and white pudding——savoury puddings, variously of meat, fat and cereal
Boiled gigot—leg of mutton or lamb
Forfar bridie—meat and onion filled pastry
Chicken tikka masala—roasted marinated chicken in curry
Collops—escalope, thick slice of meat off the bone cut across the grain
Haggis—a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs) and several other ingredients
Howtowdie with Drappit eggs—young hen with poached eggs
Kilmeny Kail—rabbit, bacon, greens
Mince and tatties—minced beef, potatoes, onions, often carrots
Mutton ham—lamb ham
Pottit heid (brawn)—head cheese
Potted hough—another head cheese
Reestit mutton—salted meat
Roast Aberdeen Angus beef
Roast haunch of venison
Roast grouse
Roast woodcock/snipe
Solan goose or guga (gannet) in the Western Isles
Scotch pie—double-crust meat pie, usually mutton
Lorne sausage—sausage meat, not encased, mostly served for breakfast
Stovies—slow-stewed potatoes, often onions and meat
Vegetables
Clapshot—potatoes, swedes, chives, butter
Curly kail
Neeps and tatties (swede turnip and potatoes)
Rumbledethumps—a traditional dish from the Scottish Borders with main ingredients of potato, cabbage and onion
Fruits
Blaeberries—not identical to US blueberries, cf.
Raspberries
Slaes
Strawberries
Tayberries
Dairy
Bishop Kennedy—soft, round, brie-like cheese with a yellowish runny interior
Bonchester—soft cheese with a white rind
Caboc—cream cheese
Crowdie—soft, fresh cows' milk cheese
Dunlop cheese—originating in Dunlop in East Ayrshire
Gigha—a Dunlop-style cheese, long-produced on the isle of Gigha
Lanark Blue—a rich, blue-veined artisan sheep's milk cheese
Teviotdale cheese—full-fat, hard, cows’ milk cheese
Puddings and desserts
Apple frushie (variant of apple tart)
Burnt cream, also known as Crème brûlée or Trinity cream.
Blaeberry pie
Carrageen moss—a milk pudding thickened with seaweed
Clootie dumpling—pudding made with flour, breadcrumbs, dried fruit
Cranachan—cream, raspberries, oats and whisky
Hatted kit—milk pudding
Marmalade pudding—made with stale bread, dried fruit, marmalade, milk and eggs
Stapag, Fuarag-oats with cold water and cold milk respectively
Tipsy laird—trifle made with whisky or Drambuie, custard and raspberries
Cakes, breads and confectionery
Bannock—flat quick bread
Berwick cockles—white-coloured sweet with red stripes
Black bun—fruit cake completely covered with pastry
Butteries/Rowies—savoury bread roll
Caramel shortbread—with caramel, milk chocolate
Deep-fried Mars bar
Drop scones—form of pancake
Dundee cake—a fruit cake with a rich flavour
Edinburgh rock—soft and crumbly confection
Empire biscuit— two shortbread biscuits with jam between, white icing, cherry on top
Fatty cutties—girdle cake
Festy cock—oatmeal pancake
Fruit slice or Flies' graveyard—sweet pastries with currants or raisins
Granny sookers—sour, hard, boiled sweet or a peppermint sweet, also known as a pan drop
Hawick balls—peppermint-flavoured boiled sweet
Jethart Snails—boiled sweets in the shape of a snail
Lucky tatties—white fondant with cassia, covered with cinnamon
Moffat toffee—notable for its tangy but sweet centre
Morning rolls—airy, chewy bread roll
Oatcakes—flatbread similar to a cracker, biscuit, or pancake
Pan drops—white round boiled sweet, hard shell, soft middle
Pan loaf—bread loaf baked in a pan or tin
Penguin biscuit
Petticoat tails—form of shortbread
Strippit baws—aniseed flavoured hard boiled sweet
Plain loaf—formerly and traditionally the most common form of bread
Puff candy—sugary toffee with a light, rigid, sponge-like texture
Scones
Scots crumpets—broadly similar to the pikelet
Scottish macaroon—made with a paste of potato and sugar, and often chocolate
Selkirk bannock, variations include Yetholm bannock—types of flat quick bread
Shortbread — biscuit usually made from sugar, butter, and wheat flour
Soor plooms—sharp-flavoured, round, green boiled sweet
Tablet—a medium-hard, sugary confection
Tattie scone (potato scone)—regional variant of the savoury griddle scone
Well-fired rolls—a more strongly flavoured morning roll
Preserves and spreads
Dundee Marmalade
Rowan jelly
Heather honey
Drinks
Alcoholic
90 shilling ale, 80 shilling ale, 70 shilling ale
India pale ale
Atholl Brose – prepared using oatmeal brose, honey, whisky, and sometimes cream (particularly on festive occasions)
Crabbie's
Drambuie
Ginger wine
Het pint—hot spiced ale to which sugar, eggs and spirits may be added
Heather ale—ale flavoured with young heather tops
Scotch ale
Scotch mist – a cocktail containing mainly Scotch whisky
Scotch whisky
Non-alcoholic
Breakfast tea
Irn-Bru—bright orange carbonated soft drink
Red Kola—bright red carbonated soft drink
Sugarelly
Restaurants
In recent years Haggis pakoras have become popular in Indian restaurants.
Fast food
Scotland's reputation for coronary and related diet-based diseases is a result of the wide consumption of fast food since the latter part of the 20th century. Fish and chip shops remain extremely popular, and indeed the battered and fried haggis supper remains a favourite. In the area around Edinburgh, the most popular condiment for chip shop meals is "salt and sauce", the sauce element consisting of brown sauce thinned with water and vinegar. However in Glasgow, and elsewhere, chippy sauce is unknown and ketchup or salt and vinegar are preferred, prompting light-hearted debate on the merits of the options among the cities' residents, who tend to find the alternative a baffling concept.
Outlets selling pizzas, kebabs, pakoras and other convenience foodstuffs have also become increasingly popular, with an extreme example of this style of food being the Munchy box.
In addition to independent fast-food outlets, in the 1960s American-style burger bars and other restaurants such as Wimpy were introduced, and in the 1980s, McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken appeared in Scotland, followed by a large number of Subway franchises in the early 21st century. Branches of Greggs offering cakes, pastries and sandwiches are also very commonly found on the high streets of Scotland, often alongside smaller competing bakeries.
Chefs
Andrew Fairlie
Tom Kitchin
Tom Lewis
Angela Malik
Alan Murchison
Nick Nairn
Gordon Ramsay
Mark Greenaway
Gary Maclean
Tony Singh
William Curley
James Morton
See also
List of British desserts
List of restaurants in Scotland
Food and the Scottish royal household
Notes and references
Further reading
Beckwith, Lillian (1976) Lillian Beckwith's Hebridean Cookbook. London: Hutchinson
Craig, Elizabeth (1956) The Scottish Cookery Book
--do.-- (1965) What's Cooking in Scotland
--do.-- (1980) The Scottish Cookery Book
Frere, Catherine Frances (editor). (1909) The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie. London: Constable and Company.
External links
Scottish Food – Scottish Food & Drink