Scotland's Dining Heritage?

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Gooooooood word, Arlen.

2.5 lbs forehock bacon; 1 lb chopped onions; 2 lbs sliced tatties; dry mustard (Coleman's, of course); pepper, a bay leaf and milk. Cut the bacon into 1 inch cubes and layer with the onions and potatoes in a cast iron pan. Sprinkle each layer with pepper and a bit of mustard and finish with a layer of overlapping discs of potato. Put the bay leaf in the centre on top and pour in enough milk to come to the top layer of potatoes. Lid the pan and simmer gently for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Serves 6 or 8. Yum. A slab of bread to sop, of course (and a dark ale).

Rex

Just shows you - that's nothing like the stovies I'm used to. Bacon? All depends on your own mother's recipe, I suppose!

If folk really, genuinely, truly want an insight into Scotland's "dining heritage" they could probably do worse than have a look at this:





Maw Broon's Cookbook will pretty much give you an idea of what ordinary Scottish folk had on the table between - what - the 1940's and the 1970's?

And up until today, in some cases. Me, for example.

Here's the blurb:

"Launched in 1936 in the "Sunday Post" in Scotland, The Broons are undoubtedly Scotland's first family - the Nation's favourites - with a readership covering all generations. The Broons 'annual' sells over 100,000 copies. This is a facsimile of Maw Broon's very own cookbook, which we borrowed from the sideboard at No. 10 Glebe Street - first made for her by her mother-in-law when 'Maw' married 'Paw', and added-to over the years with recipes for every day and special days, from friends and neighbours and others that simply caught Maw's eye in "The Sunday Post", or cut-out of the backof a flour bag. These are the very recipes that became the favourite dishes of the whole extended family - Maw and Paw, Granpaw, Daphne, Horace, Joe, Maggie, Hen, the Twins and 'the bairn'.The strip itself is still hugely popular, with the "Sunday Post" having a circulation of over 1,000,000 copies every week, and there are some examples of the strip from years gone by that Maw must have clipped into her Cookbook- perhaps as reminders of special days. We've just left the 'bits and pieces' that you find tucked into a cookbook, exactly as we found them - stains and all."

The Broons & Oor Wullie are of course so quintessentially Scottish that they should have a dedicated forum on here. The politics of the Sunday Post might not be to everyone's taste, but reading the paper certainly gives you an idea of what living in Scotland is actually like. (On reflection, I'm not entirely sure it's possible to explain the Sunday Post to anyone that hasn't absorbed Scottish culture by staying here for at least a couple of years.)

Oh, and everyone should applaud the genius of Dudley D. Watkins. Goes without saying really.