[Sca-cooks] 12th Night Haggis Contest

[Olwen the Odd]

>I have never seen a haggis either, but I did a google image search and
>found quite a few pictures and based my efforts
>on that. I am afraid that this was a rather last minute thing, so I used
>what I had on hand to do the work. All I had
>for coloring was your standard four bottle liquid food coloring set. I
>mixed a brown and then thinned it a bit with
>rosewater and used it to color and bind the marzipan so that I had a base
>color. I did the same only green for the
>lettuce leaves. I shaped everything by hand using a rolling pin and saran
>wrap to roll out the haggis. The haggis was
>stuffed with oatmeal cookie dough, so I formed it into a loaf shape and
>wrapped the flattened marzipan around it. After
>much futzing and rolling in saran wrap I had my haggis shape. The
>coloration was done with more food coloring and paint
>brushes. I had a little dish of straight food coloring and a dish of water.
>I would dip my brush into the water and then
>into the coloring and painted a wash over the haggis, going heavier in some
>areas and then coming back with water to
>wash out some areas. After I had a pretty good overall mottly color I came
>back with straight food coloring and darkened
>some areas and then I took a really small brush and put on tiny dots of
>darker areas for speckling. If I had thought to
>get a new tooth brush I would have used the dipping the brush into the
>coloring and running my thumb over it technique,
>but all I had were old toothbrushes. Minty freshness I did not want!
>
>I was stunned that over half of the thing was eaten, I guess after the
>judges cut into it the popluace figured it was
>fair game. Yeah!!
>
>Glad Tidings,
>Serena da Riva

I really liked your work Serena.  And I like the description you give of how
you did it.  Originally I wanted to ask how the colouration and texture were
done but didn't have the proper time to write.  I must say I am somewhat
amazed that you did not do any stippling with a brush or such.  The picture
looks like it was physically textured.  In that case, I give you extra
credit for creating such a fine illusion of texture.  I am not quite sure
how you got folks to eat something stuffed with, what I am reading as,
uncooked cookie dough and raw oatmeal.  That sounds rather revolting to me,
but then I don't care for pizza either.  Lettuce is hard to do because it is
one of those translucent/textures/colours things.  If you want some tips,
contact me offlist and I can maybe give you some pointers.  Glad to see you
didn't just toss down something of a solid colour green!
You did a great job Serena.  Congratulations.
Olwen

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