Scottish cuisine is full of dishes with ancient names that seem fairly odd to the modern tongue; Cullen skink, skirlie, rumbledthumps, and clapshot all spring immediately to mind. However ‘festy cock’ seems to take this tradition to a whole new level, but what exactly is it? Whether celebrating Shrove Tuesday,…
When you think of so many classic French cookbooks coq au vin always jumps out from the page. The cockerel, jointed, marinaded and slow cooked almost ritualistically. It conjures up memories of dark photographs, mahogany tables and brown bowls. These days however the chances of finding a cockerel to actually…
I always enjoy when I’m asked to create recipes using Scottish produce, while we have many very traditional dishes in Scotland like stovies, and Scotch Broth, I generally think of the cuisine of Scotland being produce driven rather than flavour driven. Therefore it means that when cooking, the dishes can…
Pigeon is a meat which gets a very mixed reaction, for many they automatically think of the dirty grey scraggly ‘rats with wings’ which are so beloved of railway bridges, park benches, and statuesque poets. Not the most appetising of creatures. However wood pigeons are an entirely different matter, plump,…
Speyside is a place that I’ve always held dear, seemingly less rugged than the west coast where I spent most of my childhood holidays but at the same time majestic in its own way. I always loved coming to Coylumbridge to camp, the soothing sound of the river never out of…
Sumayya Usmani had the wonderful opportunity to teach a week of Root Camp in beautiful Bute on Scotland’s west coast. Here she shares her experience. Sharing a week, with a group of strangers is challenging, but when it’s a group of sixteen teenagers, the challenge is amplified. When I accepted…
Dooking for apples, treacle scones, guising and turnip lanterns. This was pretty much what defined my 1980s childhood Halloween in the west of Scotland. However as more and more we are exposed to the influx of culture from across the Atlantic, trick or treating and pumpkins have sadly become the…
As I sit on the plane back from Terra Madre I am feeling humbled, inspired, and reminded of the wonderful produce that Scotland has to offer and the duty to which I am bound to celebrate it. This dish is fairly typical of my favourite type of cooking; take…
