Scottish Blog

Many people believe they know of the traditional Scottish cuisine of their clan ancestors. Unfortunately these guess do not normally exceed outside the realms of Scotch whisky and Haggis.

With the ease with which one can find a food from any culture, it can be easy to overlook traditional Scottish cuisine. Even in its native land of Scotland, traditional fast foods like fish and chips are being outnumbered by Chinese and Indian takeaways, even in smaller rural towns.

Even with these difficulties and numerous preconceptions, Scotland can still be proud of its rich Scottish cuisine.

Historically, Scotland has always enjoyed a wide array of ingredients with which to enrich its Scottish cuisine. Due to the nature of ancient settlers, seafood would have been their first staple ingredient. With the progressive spread further into the mainland and away from sources of water, ingredients such as game would have become more prominent and therefore more utilized. With further time this also gave way to more planted vegetables, most important among these would be the relatively simple and easy to grow, Oats.

After it’s established as a strong and independent region without anymore major shifts in settlements, Scottish cuisine took a turn. With a strong emphasis on feudal living, people became restricted as to where they could plant and what they could hunt, as one lord would not allow another region to hunt his venison or farm his lands. Meat became prohibitively expensive for the common person; the same could be said for a number of vegetables and spices. In turn this resulted in kings, nobles and chiefs experiencing the best of food, while the lower caste were forced to innovate with the ingredients they had access to. In its own right this was a blessing for Scottish cuisine, bringing out the best from both spectrums.

Scottish cuisine produced a number of dishes from its early times. The lower citizens would have produced recipes such as Scotch Broth. A filling and healthy soup that uses fairly cheap ingredients like barley, cheap cuts of lamb or beef and a number of easy to grow vegetables. While on the other hand, the upper class would have been able to experience the end of the Scottish Cuisine spectrum, for instance haggis or Angus beef.

An interesting aspect of Scottish cuisine that many would not anticipate is its close ties to French cuisine. These ties only became established during the times of the Auld Alliance, namely with the chef entourage of Mary, Queen of Scots. With the chefs came their own cooking styles and ingredients. This was further emphasized by the French military men who came with the Auld Alliance.