Scotland Archives - Page 2 of 2

Canadian comedian Mike Myers once observed that Scottish cuisine is basically based on a dare. He was likely referring to Scotland's national dish, haggis. We have to admit that we didn't know what to expect of this traditional delicacy that Robert Burns hailed as the “great chieftain o' the puddin'-race.” After all, it consists of minced sheep's heart, liver, and lungs combined with onion, oats, and suet—all cooked up in a sheep's stomach. That makes it the most extreme of savory puddings to have survived into the modern era. Yorkshire pudding is little more than pancake batter that soaks up the juices of a roast. Black pudding is a type of blood sausage with a lot of oatmeal in it that is usually served at...Read More

We wonder if the Scottish diet was invented sometime at the end of the last Ice Age. On our recent late-winter visit to Glasgow and Edinburgh, we found that such Scottish specialties as cullen skink, neeps and tatties, Arbroath smokies, Scotch pie, and even the ubiquitous haggis have a special appeal when the temperature hovers around the freezing point and the weatherman won't commit to whether it will rain or snow. Nordic cuisine continues to have a moment on the international gourmet scene. We found that eating in Scotland was an excellent way to get in touch with the roots of high-latitude foodstuffs before the trendy restaurants of Copenhagen and Bergen started tinkering with them. There's a pure honesty to a cuisine based on short-season...Read More

Scotland

So … what’s the big deal about haggis?

Tastes of Scotland light up a winter visit