Local products and lifestyle
Scotland has an unsuspected wealth of land and many products have PDO and PGI status. The vast pastures, thick forests and heather moors provide the perfect environment for exceptional meats. The beef of Scotland is famous, such as the excellent Angus beef, known for its marbled meat and theOrkney lamb, coming from Orkney, almost as much. The black pudding(Stornoway black pudding) from the Western Isles (Outer Hebrides) is made of pig's blood, onion, beef fat and oats. We will not forget the numerous game such as deer, hare, grouse (a kind of partridge) and capercaillie.
With more than 18,000 km of jagged coastline - almost six times more than in mainland France - Scotland and fishing go hand in hand. Cod, hake, halibut, turbot, mackerel, monkfish, but also langoustine, lobster, scallops and oysters are highly prized. Both wild Scottish salmon and organically farmed salmon have a PGI. As well as Arbroath smokies, a type of smoked haddock, produced in the Angus region in the east of the country.
Cheese production is not to be outdone. Let's mention the Bonchester, resembling a brie, which has a PGI, as well as the Dunlop, the Isle of Mull, the Anster, the Auld Lochnagar, the Lairig Ghru or the Orkney Scottish Cheddar, known for their firm paste. Also worth mentioning is Lanark Blue, similar to a sheep's milk Roquefort, or Caboc, a creamy and very rich cheese, recognizable by its roasted oat rind, which has been produced in the Scottish Highlands since the 15th century.Pubs most often serve lunch between 12 and 3 pm and dinner from 5:30 pm. The service ends early around 9pm, except in the more classic restaurants where you can eat until 10pm, sometimes later. Coffeeshops and sandwich shops are very common and offer cheap alternatives, often varied and of good quality. Especially since the British are more advanced than us regarding special diets (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, etc.), at least in the big cities. There are also many international restaurants, especially Asian ones, and more particularly Indian and Pakistani ones, of course.
The basics of Scottish cooking
Scottish pubs honor national classics. In the morning you can enjoy a very generous Scottish breakfast, which in itself is quite similar to a Full English breakfast: fried eggs, baked beans, bacon, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, toast, etc. We add regional specialties such as Stornoway black pudding, tatties scones (potato scones) or Lorne sausage (squares of finely spiced sausage meat), porridge (oatmeal) or even haggis.
Indeed, if we had to mention only one Scottish dish it would probably be haggis. This very old recipe consists of a sheep's stomach stuffed with chopped offal (heart, liver, lungs), oats, onion and spices which is cooked in a court-bouillon for several hours. Modern variations of this recipe - based on pork, beef or vegetarian (oats, bran, wheat, lentils) - have been available for some years. Traditionally, haggis is served with mashed potatoes and mashed rutabaga, the dish being called neeps and tatties, also known as clapshot, if it contains chives.
Other meat dishes include bangers and mash, a dish of Cumberland sausage with mashed potatoes andgravy. In addition to black pudding, white pudding (made of lean pork and oats) is also served for breakfast or red pudding (fatty pork and spices), often breaded and fried. On Sundays, the Sunday roast is served, which consists of roast beef, roast pork or roast chicken with vegetables, mashed potatoes and Yorkshire puddings, a kind of puffed doughnut, all covered with gravy. You can enjoy a forfar bridie, a kind of turnover filled with ground beef, or a Scotch pie, a small pie with mutton and onion. Served as a side dish as well as a main course, rumbledethumps are a mixture of mashed potatoes, kale and onion, covered with cheddar cheese au gratin. It is similar to the Irish colcannon, or the English bubble & squeak.
Fish and seafood play an important role. We find the inevitable fish & chips, often served with a dash of vinegar. The partan bree is a crab bisque soup with rice. Finnan haddie is a type of cold-smoked haddock used in cullen skink (a thick soup made of haddock, potatoes and onions). It can also be grilled or poached in milk with herbs. Haddock and cheddar cheese can also be used to make an Arnold Bennett omelette, which has been very popular since the 1930s.
Tea time
Tearooms are an important part of British life in general. Indeed tea - as in the rest of the British Isles - has a predominant place in the daily life of the Scots, just as Scotland played a major role in the democratization of this beverage. It is to James Taylor that we owe the development of tea culture in Ceylon - now Sri Lanka - who associated himself at the end of the 19th century with a certain Thomas Lipton, who began to sell Ceylon tea in 1871 in the first Lipton grocery store in Glasgow, then one of the busiest ports in the United Kingdom.
There are many tea rooms in Scotland where you can sip tea - usually black - duringafternoon tea - around 4pm - with a host of small cakes: carrot cake, scones, muffins, cupcakes, lemon bar (square cookies with lemon cream), cucumber sandwich (triangle sandwich with cucumber and cream cheese), shortbread (shortbread with butter) There are also more typical Scottish specialties such as the dundee cake, a cake richly filled with raisins and decorated with almonds or the empire cookie, a type of shortbread covered with white icing and a candied cherry.
In summer, don't forget the cranachan, a dessert combining whipped cream and raspberries, flavored with honey and whiskey, and sprinkled with toasted oats. The tipsy laird is the local name for the trifle. A dessert made with layers of whiskey-soaked sponge cake, red fruit jam, vanilla custard and whipped cream. There are also more robust preparations such as the clootie, a pudding made of flour, bread crumbs, beef fat and dried fruits cooked in a cloth in the steamer which gives it a rounded shape or the black bun, a surprising cake filled with dried fruits, cinnamon, ginger and citrus peels, all rolled up in a pastry dough before being put in the oven. Finally, to top it all off, junk food lovers can try a snack that appeared in Scotland in the 1990s, the battered Mars bar, a Mars chocolate bar, coated in doughnut dough and then fried. It's very fatty, but at least it has the merit of being nourishing after a long day of walking.
Between beer and whisky
Scotland, like the rest of the British Isles, is renowned for a long tradition of brewing that dates back over 5,000 years. Ale (pronounced [hey-l]) is the beer par excellence in the UK, traditionally unfiltered and unpasteurized. There is even the Campaign for Real Ale or CAMRA, a national association that has made the defense of traditional beers its hobbyhorse.
The cultivation of hops has always proved to be delicate in the region because of the harshness of the Scottish climate. So Scottish ales are very malty to compensate for their low quantity of hops, which also makes them stronger beers. There is also a strong caramelized and smoked taste. Traditionally Scottish ales were classified according to their price relative to their alcohol content. Thus we find the 60, 70 and 80 shillings (noted 60/-) which corresponds respectively to Scottish light, Scottish heavy and Scottish export. We climb to 90/- for the Scottish Wee Heavy, which corresponds to beers of more than 6°. These beers with a caramel color were very popular in the 19th century in the USA and in Belgium, which were strongly inspired by them for their own production.
We also find lager (beer of classic Germanic tradition, with weak fermentation and a clear dress) and the stout or porter (very roasted beer, with a brown dress and a small taste of coffee like Guinness). Let's also mention the Brown ale, the Strong ale, the Golden ale and the Old and Dark ales. Not forgetting the Indian Pale Ale (IPA), reserved for transport to the colonies, which usually contains more alcohol and hops than the others, giving it a characteristic acidity. Among the best known breweries in the country are Orkney Brewery, Caledonian Brewery, Highland Brewing Cie and Fyne Ales Brewery.
But Scotland is above all the land of whisky. According to the Scotch Whisky Association - located in Edinburgh - there are no less than 128 distilleries in the region. The three oldest Scottish distilleries still in operation are Glenturret (1775), Bowmore (1779) and Strathisla (1786), although grain brandy has been produced in the area since the Middle Ages. Among the appellations are Scotch Whisky (made from barley, it must be aged for at least 3 years in Scotland), Single Malt (made from barley, produced in a single distillery) and Blended (made from various grains, a mixture of different whiskies from several distilleries) which represents 90% of the market.
