Posts Tagged ‘Scotland’
Cindy on December 21st, 2010
Food is the most primitive form of comfort.” — Sheilah Graham
Second only to a perfect bowl of homemade soup, Scottish bread pudding is pure comfort food. Simple and satisfying. I remember waiting patiently at the kitchen table while my frugal Scottish Grandmother, an Orkney Islands native, turned stale bread and a handful of raisins into a Saturday night treat.
Though I don’t have Grandma Ruby’s recipe, I was able to find several bread pudding recipes online. Combining the best of three, I improvised a dish that would have made Grandma proud. My holiday dinner guests — both Irish, by the way — told me it was the best bread pudding they’d ever had. Several Facebook friends asked me to share it, so here it is.
Meanwhile, I’d enjoy hearing about the comfort foods — or special holiday dishes — your family enjoys. Merry Christmas to all …. Yours, aye!
SCOTTISH BREAD PUDDING
Ingredients:
10-12 thick slices of bread, cut into 1″ squares and left out overnight
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 cup of golden raisins soaked overnight in 3/4 cup of good whiskey; reserve whiskey
4 large eggs
2 cups half-and-half (or whole milk)
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Butterscotch sauce (purchase ready made)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat an 8-inch square baking dish with butter, then melt remaining butter in a cup in the microwave.
Line the baking dish with layers of bread squares, then drizzle with the melted butter. Drain the whiskey from the raisins and reserve it in a bowl. Sprinkle the soaked raisins over the bread.
In medium mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, and vanilla. Beat until well mixed. Pour the mixture over the bread, then lightly push down with a fork until bread is covered and soaking up the egg mixture. (Just as my grandmother did, I find it helps to make this dish ahead of time and store in the refrigerator for a few hours, giving the flavors time to meld and to ensure all liquid is absorbed in the bread.)
Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes or until the top springs back when lightly tapped. Cut into square servings while warm. Heat the butterscotch sauce to use as topping (about 1/2 cup, depending on how many you’re serving) on the stove; stir in the remaining whiskey while it gently heats.
Pour the sauce over the top of each serving and add whipped cream if you like. Makes 10 servings, but some guests will ask for seconds.
Cindy on November 29th, 2010
It’s guid to be merry and wise. It’s guid to be honest and true. It’s good to support Caledonia’s cause, and bide by the buff and the blue!” — Robert Burns
Remember the old Saturday Night Live sketch starring Mike Myers as the curmudgeonly owner of an import shop named All Things Scottish? As the routine progressed, shoppers would walk in and ask for items that weren’t remotely Scottish in origin — Scotch Tape, for example. Or — gasp — they’d unwittingly request goods made in Ireland.
“If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap!” Myers’ character would shout, pushing the offending customers straight for the door.
If you’re a real fan of all things Scottish, Scottish Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scotland the Brave, will speak to your inner bagpiper.
As the granddaughter of immigrants from Scotland’s Orkney Islands, I couldn’t resist a peek at a review copy of this handsome new guide. Illustrated with color photos of Scottish castles, clan lore, and national foods, it’s already provided hours of entertainment while serving as a test of my knowledge of the old country.
From ancient folklore to modern recreational pursuits, author Jonathan Green answers any question you might have about Scotland and its people. And even if you’re not of Celtic ancestry, you might like to know how deeply Scottish roots still grow in American soil. Just for fun, see if you can answer the following questions:
–Why is there an Aberdeen, a Dundee, and a Glasgow in the United States?
– We all sing “Auld Lang Syne” on New Year’s Eve, but what does it really mean?
– What does the ubiquitous hamburger giant have to do with Scottish clans?
– Who was the real Macbeth … or was there a real Macbeth?
– Why is Scotland known as the home of golf, and what’s the origin of a “caddie”?
– Why was Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling adopted by Scotland as one of their own?
Scottish Miscellany would make an idea Christmas gift for armchair travelers as well as for the devoted Scots in your family. Likewise, if you’re planning a real trip to Scotland, this book will help pinpoint key sites for your visit. It even includes a short pronunciation guide to help translate a brogue. So, grab a copy, pour yourself a cuppa tea, break open the shortbread, and enjoy! – Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on February 17th, 2009
There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (Letters)
Lately I’ve noticed a lot of magazine articles touting the medicinal wonders of tea, but I don’t need to be persuaded. While I still rely on strong black coffee for my morning jump-start, I’m primed for the pleasures of tea by the time my workday winds down.
Unlike coffee (tea’s rich but nerve-racking cousin), tea is a soul-soother. Whether you prefer the delicate jasmine aroma of Earl Grey, or the spicy citrus bouquet of Constant Comment, one cup is enough to transform the dismal hour between four and five o’clock into an uplifting occasion.
I can’t pour a teapot without remembering my paternal grandmother, Robina Scott, who grew up in rural Scotland, then immigrated to this country in the 1920s. A lifelong tea drinker, Grandma Ruby taught me the grown-up custom of “taking tea” when I was a child.
To a five-year-old whose parents drank coffee, tea rituals seemed wonderfully prim and sometimes a little exotic. According to Ruby’s native Orkney Island folklore, reading tea leaves was a reliable way to forecast a person’s future. Following old-country custom, she would interpret the various shapes of leaves left in a cup, then predict weather conditions, the health of an ailing relative, the sex of an unborn child, or even the arrival of a love letter.
But my grandmother never took fortune-telling seriously, nor was she a British purist who insisted on using loose tea in a metal infuser or strainer. At my urging, in fact, she’d generously stock her kitchen canister with Red Rose tea bags after I had pilfered all the collectible dinosaur cards from the box. As surely as I can spell brontosaurus, I can still picture the floral-print housedresses Ruby would wear when she “put the kettle to boil” and rolled great masses of dough for her perfect apple pies. During my weekend visits, I was always allowed to make my own cinnamon-sugar strips from her leftover pie dough.
“Use a bit less o’ the sugar, dearie,” Ruby would scold. “And don’t eat the dough before it’s done!”
While the pies baked, Ruby and I sat at her kitchen table, dipping and steeping our tea bags until the water in our steaming cups turned amber. Sometimes we talked between sips; mostly we stared quietly out the kitchen window and watched the sparrows, our silver spoons breaking the reverie as they chimed against cup and saucer.
As my grandmother liked to remind me, tea had Oriental origins but was a British import to the early American colonies. As most of us recall from our grade-school history classes, it was heavily taxed by the monarchy and eventually incited the boisterous Boston Tea Party of 1773. Since then, our country has harbored a stubborn preference for coffee.
A mug of coffee is quick, feisty, and all-American — easy to consume on the run in disposable cups.
Tea, on the other hand, requires that we sit down long enough to assemble its various accoutrements. Drinking tea entails a fussy battery of saucers, spoons, bags, lemon wedges, and pots with lids, not to mention the optional milk, honey, or sugar. Which is why most waiters don’t cater to tea drinkers; they think we’re a high-maintenance bunch and would rather not be bothered with our hot-water refills.
But there’s another revolution brewing here. Researchers claim that tea, especially green tea, is naturally laden with antioxidant properties that promote good health. A survey conducted by The Tea Council in Great Britain reported that drinking four or five cups of tea per day “may have a beneficial effect on high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure,” and may reduce the incidence of certain cancers.
If Ruby were alive today, I doubt these new-age health claims would have impressed her. The real merits of tea, as we both discovered years ago, are tied to its soothing, soul-filling rituals. — Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on October 30th, 2008
From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties,
And things that go bump in the night,
Good lord, deliver us! — Scottish saying
Halloween always stirs a delicious cauldron of memories. Baby boomers are a nostalgic bunch, and most of us can recall at least one costume we wore in grade school. Wearing yards of pink tulle and a homemade foil crown, I dressed up as Miss America when I was in the first grade in 1960. And who could forget trick-or-treating in packs until our pillowcases were too heavy to lug around the block? While the holiday suffered a lull in the 1970s, the “season of the witch” now competes with Christmastime as the biggest party season of the year. And with all due respect to religious groups refusing to celebrate it, I never thought of Halloween as inherently evil.
British and Irish historians are also quick to remind us that “All Hallows Eve” did not originate as a gruesome night of devil worship â though I’ll be the first to admit that American retailers, merchants, and film producers are guilty of adding their own mythology. And gore. Regardless, in my view, what most of us seem to enjoy about the holiday is the creativity factor.
Stepping over age limits, Halloween extends an open invitation to play dress-up. It inspires us to raid attics and local thrift shops for the most outlandish outfits we can jumble together. If only for one magical night, it gives us permission to drop the dull disguise of conformity.
For flea-market junkies like me, Halloween is reason enough to hoard pieces of vintage clothing and jewelry that, by all rights, should have been donated to charity ages ago. My husband now refers to our attic as “the clothing museum,” and with good reason. Friends who have trouble rustling up an outfit will often call for help during dress-up emergencies. (“Can I borrow one of your medieval jester hats for a clown costume?” is not an unusual request.) Over the years, in fact, I’ve collected so many crazy hats that we have to store them in a large steamer trunk behind the living room couch. Those hats get the most wear near Halloween, when even the most reserved engineer who visits will try on a pith helmet or a plumed pirate hat and wear it to the dinner table.
And why not? Historically speaking, the holiday has always been a celebration of the harvest, a madcap prelude to the more dignified ceremonials of Thanksgiving.
Halloween’s deep roots weave back more than 2,000 years to the early Celts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. It was originally known as the festival of Samhain, according to Caitlin Matthews, a Celtic scholar and author of The Celtic Book of Days (Destiny Books). The festival, she explains, marked the end of the farming season and the beginning of the Celtic new year. Lavish banquet tables were prepared for the ancestors, who were believed to pierce the veil between the living and the dead on the eve of Samhain. It was also time to rekindle the bonfires that would sustain the clans in winter.
“In the Christian era,” Matthews writes, “the festival was reassigned to the Feast of All Saints; however, many of the customs surrounding modern Halloween still concern this ancient understanding of the accessibility of the dead.”
And we can thank our Irish immigrants for the jack-o’-lantern, which reputedly wards off evil spirits. This custom evolved from the old practice of carving out large turnips and squash, then illuminating them with candles. The term jack-o’-lantern was derived from a folk tale involving a crafty Irishman named Jack, who outwitted the Devil.
On cool October nights, when the moon is bright and leaves scatter nervously across the sidewalk, a bittersweet chill runs up and down my spine. I like to recall a favorite quote from Ray Bradbury, whose affection for Halloween surpasses even mine: “If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of mystery and wonder.”
And I think of my beloved Scottish grandparents, who left their exhausted farms in the Orkney Islands to begin new lives in United States in the 1920s. I recall the knee-cracking highland folk dances they taught me, and the silly lyrics to their rural old-country tunes. I remember their hard-won wisdom, and how much I still miss their love.
Like my Celtic ancestors, I’m moved to take stock of my own “harvest” — how much I’ve accomplished throughout the year, and how many things I’ve left undone. My to-do list is yards long. There are parts of the world I haven’t seen; stories I haven’t written; debts and favors to repay. I marvel at the mellow beauty of the season, which has always been my favorite, but also feel a little sad that one more year is drawing to its close.
All said and done, I like to think of Halloween as the big good-bye party we throw for autumn’s final weeks. And a toast to the year ahead. All in good fun. – Cindy La Ferle
–A slightly different version of this essay is cross-posted this week on Read the Spirit.–
The photo shows our fireplace mantel decorated for Halloween this year.
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Second only to a perfect bowl of homemade soup, Scottish bread pudding is pure comfort food. Simple and satisfying. I remember waiting patiently at the kitchen table while my frugal Scottish Grandmother, an Orkney Islands native, turned stale bread and a handful of raisins into a Saturday night treat.
