In Focus - Discover Scotland: Experience the Best of Scotland - page 630

Kippers (smoked herring) were invented in Northumberland, in northern England, in
the mid-19th century, but Scotland soon picked up the technique, and both Loch Fyne and
Mallaig are famous for their kippers.

Oat Cuisine
The most distinctive feature of traditional Scot-
tish cookery is the abundant use of oatmeal.
Oats (Avena sativa) grow well in the cool, wet
climate of Scotland and have been cultivated
here for at least 2000 years. Up to the 19th cen-
tury, oatmeal was the main source of calories
for the rural Scottish population. The farmer in
his field, the cattle drover on the road to the
market, the soldier on the march, all would
carry with them a bag of meal that could be
mixed with water and baked on a griddle or on
hot stones beside a fire.
Long despised as an inferior foodstuff, oat-
meal is enjoying a return to popularity as recent
research has proved it to be highly nutritious
(high in iron, calcium and B vitamins) and
healthy (rich in soluble fibre, which helps to re-
duce cholesterol).
The best-known Scottish oatmeal dish is, of
course, porridge, which is simply rolled oatmeal
boiled with water. A lot of nonsense has been
written about porridge and whether it should be
eaten with salt or sugar. It should be eaten
however you like it - as a child in the 1850s,
Robert Louis Stevenson had golden syrup with
his.
Oatcakes are another traditional dish that you will certainly come across during a visit
to Edinburgh, usually as an accompaniment to cheese at the end of a meal.
A mealie pudding is a sausage-skin stuffed with oatmeal and onion and boiled for an
hour or so. Add blood to the mixture and you have a black pudding.

Single Malt
Whiskies

1 BOWMORE (ISLAY)

2 MACALLAN (SPEYSIDE)

3 HIGHLAND PARK (ORKNEY)

4 BRUICHLADDICH (ISLAY)

5 SPRINGBANK (CAMPBELTOWN)

6 TALISKER (SKYE)