No, I haven’t tried cullen skink yet. Or haggis. They’re on my to-do (or to-eat) list…. I’m told cullen skink is a haddock and potato soup. I’d call it a chowder variant…. I’m assuming you’ve heard of haggis….

I have tried fish cakes. Three times. They’re small bits of fish mixed into mashed potatoes, then made into cakes that are then deep fried. At least, all three versions I’ve had were done that way. Maybe at home sometimes they’d be pan-fried.

This version is made with cod, and has sorrel bits added for even more flavor. These cakes are served on a bed of asparagus with a wee salad. Yum; meat and potatoes in one dish!

The full Scottish breakfast (toast, tea/coffee not shown) is very similar to the English version. (In fact, shhhh!, I can’t tell them apart.) Some skip the beans. Some have different fried bread options. Some include potatoes in a fried patty, often triangular. Probably, many people have an eew factor over the black pudding (sausage of pig-blood, grain, not sure what else, sliced and I think fried)—but we only had this item offered in northern north-England—not in London.

What I find curious about these breakfasts is the mixture of items…. The broiler-singed tomatoes, for example…they’d be available in pre-hot-house days just in the fall, and not over a long period then. And I think of blood sausage as also harvest food…. And what was the seasonality of mushrooms traditionally? Anyway, when you’re upscale these days, you get all sorts of proteins for breakfast, and a lot of fried on top of that…all together, not super nutritionally. I understand the preferred breakfast used to be kippers. Stinky/strong fish at breakfast time, yum.

This is a Scotch pie. It’s pie crust artfully wrapped around a sausage patty, then baked. It’s about 3 inches across…I guess a variant on the pastie idea.

That’s enough for now; I’m making me hungry!

* S for Scotland.

This entry was posted in food on Friday, 22 May 2015 at 1:37 pm.
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