From Crumpets to Tea Cakes
December 28, 2024
Some trips are all about the food. A few places like France or Italy come to mind. One destination that never seems to make the list is Scotland. I can’t say that I went out of my way to eat as much Scottish cuisine as I could get my hands on but I also shouldn’t have discounted it as being an important part of the trip. Most often a trip is defined, at least in part, by what you eat when you are there. The food we had in Scotland was amazing!
We had planned to cook most of our meals. I love shopping for food at the grocery store in other countries. It’s a great way to see what the locals are eating. And to get a look at the packaging. We were not tempted by the canned meats. Not even a little.
We made a mushroom pasta in a cream sauce on our first night. We cooked it in the sweet little kitchen of our tenement flat and ate it at the bay window with a view of the street. One thing that more people should be raving about is Scottish dairy. I’m not sure exactly what it is that we’re doing wrong but our dairy is nowhere near as good as theirs.
I ate crumpets with marmalade for breakfast almost every day. I miss them. They are delicious! And those holes! They’re so big and there are so many that each crumpet can hold an obscenely large amount of butter. Genius.
We had a take out lunch at Santa Lucia Deli, an Italian sandwich place, in Glasgow one day. We splurged and bought a dessert pastry to share. When we opened the bag, we saw that the server had put in an extra. It was such a sweet thing to do. And they were so good. So good.
Sometimes it can be the snacks that stand out. We were driving in a pretty remote area but turned off the road and headed into a small town to get a souvenir map at the gas station. They had the best snacks! They seemed to have all of the standard stuff but they also had some surprises including these smoked pheasant and wild mushroom chips. That bag didn’t last long. Those chips/crisps were delicious!
Everyone asks whether or not we tried Haggis. I suppose I can’t say that we tried traditional haggis but what we did have was probably one of my favourite things on this trip. It was an appetizer called Haggis Bon Bons (no photo). It turns out that Haggis Bon Bons are little haggis meatballs, battered, deep fried and served with the most delicious sauce. My mouth is watering just thinking about them. It was served with a salad. The dressing was absolutely delicious. It seemed like a sort of herbed jelly that had been warmed back up to a liquid state. It was so surprising and so good. For the main course, Matt had a venison burger and I had the fish and chips. They were excellent but the haggis is what I remember most. The restaurant was called Blas on the Isle of Skye. I highly recommend it.
One night we were lucky enough to stumble upon a pizza van, G’s Pizza Box, at the local pub which was right around the corner from our little cottage. Not only were we lucky to find the pizza van, we were lucky to get the last two pizzas available for the night. The only snag was that we had to wait about an hour and a half. Having a pub right there in the parking lot was an extremely convenient way to pass the time. I can wholeheartedly say that it was worth every second of the wait.
On our last night in Edinburgh we stopped at Harkness Pies. They had a wall of beverages and a cooler FULL of meat pies and that was it. It was so simple. And it was busy. We bought three to share: a steak and stout, a chicken and leek, and a Scotch pie. I honestly don’t remember which one was my favourite because they were all so good. I washed it down with a rhubarb soda. It was a great choice.
We finished every night out with Ginger Border Cookies or Tannock’s Tea Cakes. Or both. I don’t sit and have a cookie or a cake after every meal at home but I love that we did it on this trip. I can’t believe it but we can actually get the Tea Cakes here. Once in a while Matt will surprise me with a box. Unwrapping them and taking a bite is like taking a mini-trip back to Scotland.