The interesting flavors of Scottish food

24 Sept 2013

Pickled onion is a weird flavor, but I think the picture
on the bag is the best part of this one :)

Part 2: Scottish Food
Before I start, no, I haven't tried haggis yet. Everyone I know here likes it, so I'm looking forward to tasting it. Burns' night is celebrated over here and haggis is a centerpiece of the tradition. The night itself is in honor of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, whose birthday is January 25. I will be in the field in Antarctica for that, but I will find another excuse to have haggis - I promise!

Not sure this would sell in the USA...

Despite rumors of disgusting, bland food, I've found Scottish food to be flavorful and quite nice. My favorite foods so far are the delicious soups with freshly baked bread served in adorable coffee shops. There's a ton of delicious lamb served everywhere as well.

Who would have thought to make a spread
out of biscuits (cookies) - Let's spread
our crushed up carbs on other carbs

That being said, there are some things of which I'm not the biggest fan: butter on just about every sandwich, Branston pickle on sandwiches (with no labels on the outside of the package), and blood sausage.  There's some other interesting food here - marmite (like vegemite, made from the leftovers from beer brewing) and a spread made out of cookies. I'm still running across interesting things every time I go to the store.

Irn Bru - Scottish non-alcoholic beverage of choice

Another staple of the Scottish diet seems to be Irn Bru - apparently, Scotland sold more Irn Bru than Coke for many years in the past and only recently has Coke started to catch up (they are now about equal). My impression: a cross between bubble gum flavor and orange gatorade. It has the salty, electrolyte taste, but with a sickly-sweet bubble gum flavor to mask some of it. Needless to say, I'm happy that I'm trying to avoid soda...

In case you're worried that real haggis might not be your thing.

The restaurants around town are diverse, but I think they broadly fall into three categories: Scottish/local (I'm including pubs here), kebab/pizza/falafel (also includes just about anything that can be fried), and Indian. It's been delicious trying the prepared foods, but I have to avoid the fish & chip/fried food places. I tried a fried cheeseburger - I hate to admit that it was heavenly. I'm sure I will eventually work my way through all the varieties of little pies (savory, with various meat, cheese, or other fillings), but I need to pace myself.

The really interesting flavors come into play with the drinks and crisps (chips). I've been taking pictures as I see new flavors and I have quite the collection. I'll break them into categories below.

What exactly do they mean by "vale of evesham tomatoes"? 

Popular and common: salt and malt vinegar (which I really enjoy)

Flavors I understand, but I've never tried:
Cheddar cheese & bacon
Cheese & onion
Smoky bacon
Roast chicken
Bacon sizzler
Roast beef

Flavors that I just don't understand:
Sausage and tomato
Vintage cheddar and onion chutney

In case regular prawn cocktail was not quite "tingly" enough for you...

Prawn cocktail (if that's not adventurous enough for you, try Tingly Prawn Cocktail)
Flame grilled steak
Pickled onion
Haggis and cracked pepper

If the crisps aren't enough, then you can get drinks with flavors like dandelion and burdock or apricot and barley.

The variety of flavors certainly blows the typical US flavors out of the water. I'm trying to keep an open mind by trying many of them. We'll see how the rest go, but prawn cocktail crisps are not my thing :)  I'm sure there will be much more to add to this list once I've been here for longer than three months.

What is "Scottish" food?

Part 1: How do you know what "Scottish" food is? 

If I'm to talk about "Scottish" food, I first need to know how to define "Scottish" food. Considering that I've lived here for about 3 months, I don't really feel qualified to answer that question. Let's start with a question where I could be considered more of an expert: What is American food? It's still a hard question to answer because it is so diverse and depends on where you live. There are some classically American foods (hamburgers and hot dogs), but outside of that, it can be hard to say what is truly American.

I've discovered an easy way to tell: Go to a foreign country and look at the appropriate section of the "Foreign Foods" aisle. This is what other people want to eat from your country and what expatriates miss from their home country. In Edinburgh, there are specific stores for foods from some countries: Indian Market, Polish Market, Oriental Market. Luckily, there is a store, Lupe Pintos, that specializes in all the others (Mexican, American, Italian, French, Spanish, etc.). Here is a selection of "American" foods from that store: Full-sized bags of chocolate chips, Hershey's syrup, canned pumpkin, marshmallow fluff, syrup and pancake mix, steak sauce, plain yellow mustard, instant pudding mix, Lucky Charms, and ranch dressing. Of course, there are other things that you can find in the regular grocery store, with the most popular being peanut butter.

American section at Lupe Pintos -
All sorts of stuff that I don't eat,
but that is apparently associated with the USA

Very expensive bacon-flavored popcorn in the US section

I'm also baffled by some of the food you find in the American section - What must people here think of us? I think the bacon-flavored popcorn was the weirdest. I don't know anyone who eats actually eats that in the US. Same goes for the mixed peanut butter and jelly jars. There are also some interesting ideas of what are American flavors (cheese & New York deli relish?).

The next post is on Scottish food - and I'm defining Scottish food simply as the food that I see all the time and the food that I eat and see my friends eat when we go out together. I'm sure there will be more posts later as I figure out what is actually the food that everyone here eats and what is confined to my weird friends :)

Not quite sure what "American Bubble Chips" are either...