[Sca-cooks] Scottish cuisine (and now, blood dishes)

[Stefan li Rous]

Suey said:

<<< Someone asked about historical Scottish cuisine recently.
While someone else seemed discouraging to me on the subject I had no
time to look the matter up.
Sitting down and thinking there is a vast area out there such as:
Scottish oats, oat porridges, soups, barley and leeks, kale, nettles.
oatcakes, shortbread and pancakes.
spit roasts.
fish - haddock, smoked haddock, salmon, kippers
game - birds, venison
beef, mutton
soft fruit raspberries and strawberries
cheeses
whiskey and wine >>>

I guess it depends upon how much supposition you are comfortable  
with.  Most of what you give above are ingredients, not dishes.  If  
that is all you have to work with, then work with it but it is going  
to be more difficult to say your dishes are what medieval Scottish  
food tasted like.  If you do a search on "haddoock" or "salmon" in  
the Florilegium you will find numerous recipes.  How do you know  
which of these would be close to how it was done in Scotland?

I do have a book on the history of Scotch whiskey. Sometime I will  
get around to reading it and finding out how much information is in  
there about the Middle Ages.  And if there are mentions of it being  
drunk for other than medicinal purposes.

Why do you say wine for Scotland? You can't grow grapes there, so it  
would have to have been imported, particularly during the later  
Middle Ages.  Do we have any idea how common it was to drink wine in  
Scotland?

<<< Amazon has about 30 Scottish cookbooks on sale :
http://astore.amazon.co.uk/scotland-food-21?node=0&page=4 >>>

These are going to be "traditional", not historic recipes. However  
they can make a starting point.

<<< I think the subject of Scottish medieval cuisine super. When  
Marks and
Spencer was in Madrid I bought Haggis the first payday every month as a
special for the family. We love haggis, black pudding and morcilla which
I personally make from our own pigs' blood. >>>

What is "Marks and Spencer"? Was that an English or Scottish store?

What are your recipes for black pudding and morcilla?

I do have this file in the FOOD-MEATS section of the Florilegium. I  
think a few of the recipes may go back before 1600, although I seem  
to remember most of these being "white" puddings, not the ones  
usually thought of as traditional haggis with all the internal organs  
and such.
haggis-msg       (106K)  1/29/08    Scottish haggis recipes. comments  
on haggis.

What did other cultures do with the stomach? I'd be surprised if the  
Scots were the only ones with such a dish, as with bagpipes. There  
were a number of different regions and countries that had their own  
bagpipes but Scotland is the only one that most people think of.  
While other cultures have various types of sausages, were the Scots  
really the only ones who used the stomach as the sausage casing?

For those who have access to fresh (or frozen?) blood and are  
adventurous, here is a file with some recipes:
blood-dishes-msg  (30K)  1/20/08    Use of blood in period foods.  
Recipes.

Anyone tried such dishes at an SCA feast? I suspect it would be a  
harder sale then simply serving fish which was discussed recently.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****