Scotland, Vittles and The Water of Life

In Johnny Foxes, a pub near the river in the central town of Inverness, a chalkboard on the wall says:

• Soup of the Day, £5.00
• Dram 15 yr old Dalwhinnie, £4.50

Now this country has its priorities straight!  To put this in perspective, at the time we were there, £1.00 is $1.30.  That makes a dram of Dalwhinnie about $5.85.  In the states, at the bar it will go for $15, and an entire bottle for around $75.

But like I said, the Scots are imminently practical.  The development of Single Malt Whisky (don't call it Scotch!  We don't call bourbon American now, do we?) was a matter of survival.  When you mostly live on meat, and that meat has been hanging around awhile, it gets sorta ... well, pungent.  And the critters are eating more of it than you are.  The Scots found this fantastic substance kills 99.9% of these critters when poured on meat.  Hence it's called The Water of Life.  

But like other things Scottish, they were not content to leave it just at a practical level.  They spun it into an art.  At the Scotch Whiskey Experience in Edinburgh, we learned how arty this can be.  The four Whisky-producing regions of Scotland each bring a different flavor.  My favorite is the Islay region that produces smoky, peaty whisky that's almost clear in color.    Below is their collection of whiskies going back 100 years or more.  

In some cases, even though the stopper is still on the bottle, all the whisky in it has evaporated.  They call that portion the Angels Share and ... well, I hope they're happy. 

Breakfast

The Scots have a love-hate relationship with the English, as you might have guessed.  Like the Irish, they borrow the notion of the Full English Breakfast and tinker with it.  The Scottish breakfast is:

• Eggs
• Tom-ah-toes, small and poached until the skin just slides off
• Bacon
• Haggis or Bangers
• Baked Beans.  And I can't stress this enough - they must be canned Heinz beans of the lowest, blandest quality. 
• Toast - white or brown (there is no such thing as wheat toast.  All toast is wheat, muh friend!  Do you want white wheat or brown wheat)

Meh.  I'm not a fan.  It helps to smoosh everything onto your fork before shovelling into your gullet.  Remember as kids how we used to religiously keep food from touching each other?  That won't work in Scotland.  And you wouldn't want it to.  

Alternatively you can get a bowl of porridge.  I opted for that most days.  The Scots, like all Brits, are fond of their Runny Honey, and use that as their sole porridge topping.  I added lemon marmalade because ... well, it's my vacation!  

Porridge is just oatmeal that's been mashed and pulverized beyond recognition.  This is a very British cooking technique, the equivalent of sauce-making in France.  Mushy Peas are the greatest expression of this.  But even the bangers have a very finely ground meat in them that is so unlike the coarse grind of American sausages.  Bleh.  

Which brings me to Haggis.  The less said on this subject the better.  Suffice it to say, I ate it once accidentally.  Amy got Venison for dinner and pushed over a deep fat fried ball over to me.  "Try that." she ordered.  It was black inside, cinammony, and well, nondescript.  That was enough for me.  When in Rome, do as the Romans and all that.  But if the Romans are all jumping off a bridge (or eating something yucky), I won't follow.  Sorry.   

Dinner

On the other hand if someone offers you Cullen Skink, say yes, yes, OMIGOD yes!   

Cullen Skink is potato and onion chowder with chunks of smoked haddock.   As you expect from the Scots, it comes from practicality - you preserve fish, abundant in the many coastal waters, the same way you do bacon ... with lots of smoke and salt.  Many of our dinners in Scotland riffed off that concept.  The best fish I had was Smoked Hake at a fish bistro called The Cafe Royale.  An Inverness, Restaurant 27 served smoked haddock in a cream sauce with Pappardelle pasta.  It was perfect with a dry Spanish red wine (yeah I know, it's supposed to be white wine with fish ... but smoked fish is different).  

The smoke nails it.  It gets into your veins, inoculating you against the chilly, windy evening.  It's the equivalent of porridge in the nighttime.  But really, there was no bad seafood in Scotland, no matter what it was.  We got an order of the hugest mussels we'd ever seen, each the size of two marbles, swimming in a nice Thai cream sauce.  And even the Fish and Chips were pretty spectacular, even if not served in authentic newspaper.  (And I like Mushy Peas - sorry!)

Amy went on a quest for the perfect dinner pie.  She had chicken and rosemary pie at Mum's Comfort Foods in Edinburgh, and Steak and Ale pie at Johnny Foxes.  My personal quest was for Bangers and Mash, and there Mum's Comfort Food nailed it with Chilpotle Cheese mash, caramelized onion gravy, and spicy sausages.  

For dessert?  Amy went for the fruit crisps, which were uniformly excellent.  Me, I was partial to Eton Mess and Sticky Toffee Pudding.  But for me, the quintessential Scottish dessert was Cranachan, a masterpiece of flavor:

The raspberries are marinated in whisky.  The cream is vanilla double cream.  On the bottom and bottom are toasted porridge flakes with honey.   In a way it's quite humble, the opposite of Italian or French desserts.  But it all turns on the quality of the raspberries, which were the best I'd ever tasted. 

I know, I know.  You don't think of Scotland for their cuisine.  But you should.  Because in many ways, it's the highest expression of local cuisine, which is so highly regarded these days.  They eat what's around them, and what they concoct helps them appreciate (and survive) the climate.  It takes more than a fad to do that properly - it takes hundreds of years.