SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #51

[L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt]

>From: Dottie Elliott <macdj at onr.com>
>Subject: SC - Scottish Recipes
>
>I am interested at present in locating period Scottish recipes. If anyone 
>can point me in the direction of references I should look for or offer 
>recipes,  I would appreciate it.
>
>Thanks, Clarissa
>
Clarissa, I shall be giving away my best kept secrets, however.......

To the best of my knowledge, not one single period Scottish cookbook exists
to date (I've look fairly hard, but may have missed one). Scottish food is
somewhat similar to British food, with the addition of traditional foods
that have so much attention in Scotts Cuisine. So period sources from
Briatain are largely appropriate. Things like Venison, Brawn, Any game, and
a larger portion of higher quality fish would be appropriate. And there is
one major subtraction: leavened bread. True, the nobility (mostly English or
Half English ) in later period ate white bread. The common man considered
this sissy food to the extent that Scotts Merchants traveling "down" below
Hadrian's little nuisance brought their own bakestone and supplies rather
than suffer the type of bread that would not sustain you. Edinburough had a
professional white bread bakery late in period, but the Idea was very slow
to catch on. Naturally this would be more true of midland to highland
scotts, and less true of lowland scotts.Read *Food In Britain* for the best
non-recipe information on this topic.

Scotts Cuisine had a heavy French influence, so suprisingly you will find
some wonderful and involved recipes. Where to look? Two wonderful books:

Lady Castle Hill's Receipt Book, The Molendinar Press, Glasgow, copyright
1976 Hamish Whyte. This is essentially a coffeetable book, with the original
recipes (selected ones, but all pretty good) typed and the punctuation
altered to make sense to the modern reader --- so beware, they may have made
a mistake.

Mrs. McClintock's Receipt Book, Edited by Isabail MacCloud (sorry, I don't
have the copyright but I bought mine within the last 5 years at a noraml
bookstore). This tiny book is a faithful reproduction of the original with a
glossary of Scottish terms and measurements. Recipes are excellent and the
book was later published under another name----either stolen or Mrs.
McClintock (a widow) remarried.

Both books date to the early 1700s. That seems to be the closest we can get
to documantation. I know, it's very very sad.

Hope that helped you. I have also been known to get a little inspiration
from "MODERN" traditional cookbooks such as the excellent Farmhouse Cookery,
Recipes from the Country Kitchen, which gives traditional recipes in modern
format with a little history of each from Reader's Digest Books, London.
Britain's Ethnic dishes are well represented here, but you'll have to
translate metric to the US system of measurement (if you live in the
states). This is easily done with a   glass pyrex measuring cup, which has
Both marked on its side. 

Aoife
"Many things we need can wait. The child cannot."
				---Gabriela Mistral, Chilean Poet 1889-1957