Flavors of Scotland

the North Sea, St. Andrews, Scotland

It felt right to write about Scottish food and drink. I cooked for myself while living in Scotland, which granted me choice and control over what I ate, but I tasted and observed a fair amount of British food too. I don't see British and Scottish food as too separate, but because I ate and lived in Scotland, I'm tempted to label it as Scottish food for this post.

On the second day of my recent visit, my friend Joy turned 21! There was a traditional high tea in the afternoon and a Scottish meal in the evening at a local restaurant. By this point in the journey, I had no negative feelings towards Scottish food, and hadn't really noticed the transition from American food towards slightly blander foods. By the end of my journey though, days later, I was massively missing spice, flavor and salads. There is very tasty British/Scottish food; soft fruits (raspberries and blackcurrants, especially), along with scones, tea and certainly fish and chips seem to taste better grown or made in the U.K., but the food does seem to lack spices. This seems to have been realized and nearly solved though, as all types of curries are popular now in the U.K., and since the late 1990's, chicken tikka masala has consistently ranked unofficially as Britain's favo(u)rite and most popular dish. While popular, I don't see Indian food as ever quite making the leap to being defined as British, or served alongside fish or meat pies. I found during my year there, that it was most often pizza, black beans, salads and salsa that I missed the most. When in the U.S., it was the Scottish salmon and scones I missed the most.

High tea, May 17. I mistook the bowl of clotted cream for a larger-than-average bowl of soft butter for nearly the full afternoon. Despite the confusion, my scone tasted great!

For dinner, after bread and butter were served, appetizers including haggis (left), chicken and mackerel (right), salami, sausages, cheese, smoked salmon and rocket (also known as watercress) were served. The salmon was delicious! The servers were so friendly too, and the restaurant was in a beautiful location of town.

When the main courses were brought, several large bowls of roasted vegetables and potatoes were served along with mustard seed-infused mashed potatoes which the woman serving them described as "mustard mash." :) Two main dishes, rabbit linguine and duck confit were brought and served among everyone. I enjoyed the duck, but after a childhood of rabbits as pets, struggled to try the rabbit linguine. 

Later that evening, I met up with Miriam and several of her friends along the North Sea. We stopped for a drink at a golfer's pub where I enjoyed Pimm's and Lemonade (known as sprite in the U.S.) Pimm's is a British liqueur made from gin with several infused herbs and citrus. I don't quite know how to describe the taste, but it's always served with sprigs of mint and cucumber and often raspberries, strawberries and slices of apple. It's commonly served in the summer at British garden parties.

Mmmmm…it was so refreshing.

Hope and I after ping pong. :)

Later that evening, we attended a party along the coast where ping pong and laughter occurred.