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  • Meals, Customs and Foods Commonly Used in Romania

    ROMANIAN MEALS, CUSTOMS AND FOOD COMMONLY USED

    The single most important staple of the Romanian diet is mamaliga (the name is of Turkish origin from mama, and means food). Many peasants have survived almost solely on this cornmeal porridge while even the upper classes make it almost a daily part of the menu. Romanians are also fond of spicy and tangy appetizers, cheeses, sour soups, stews of vegetables and meat, grilled and roasted meats and fish as well as sweet desserts and pastries. All of this is enjoyed with good wine, potent plum brandy (Tuica), thick Turkish coffee and sometimes weak tea. Simple or complex, Romanian foods all have distinctive flavors, and as in everything else, contrast are much enjoyed.

    MEALS AND CUSTOMS

    Breakfast may of necessity have to be only mamaliga and yogurt or clabbered milk, but Romanians prefer a hearty breakfast including soft-boiled eggs or omelets, sliced ham and sausages, cheeses and dark bread. Lunch or dinner is considered the biggest meal of the day and may be anytime between 1:00 and 4:00 p.m. It usually begins with a gustare or “taste” of cheeses, olives, scallions, and Tuica, then on to soup, followed by a good stew of meat or fish with vegetables, a dessert of fruit or pastries or clatite (rolled thin pancakes). This is accompanied by wine and completed with Turkish coffee. The evening meal will be lighter and taken around 9:00 p.m. It is usually made up of leftovers from dinner, noodle or dumpling dishes, or something based on mamaliga (cottage cheese and butter atop a plate of mamaliga for instance). Large servings are the common rule.

    Casual visitors are always offered a tray with dulceata, cold water, and tiny cups of Turkish coffee. The procedure is to take small spoonfuls of dulceata followed by sips of water. Turkish coffee completes the ritual. In some areas the offering of the second cup of coffee means that the visit is over and it is time to leave.

    Meals at home tend to be not only generous in portions, but simple and hearty. The many-course meal is a rarity except in affluent homes or restaurants. There is little home life in the cities, because of the congested and sparse living quarters, so people enjoy the evening stroll (like the korzo of the former Yugoslavia and the paseo of Spain) with a stop for drinks, snacks, and gossip. Meals in restaurants feature fine-quality beef and all of the complex dishes that require skilled preparations: ciorbas, tocanas. ghivetcu, tortes, strudels, and other specialties. Coffeehouses serve tea and coffee but mostly aperitifs with appetizer plates of olives, pickles, and cheese.

    Street vendors sell fresh fruits in season, dried fruit snacks, and the Romanian specialty mititei.

  • Special Occasions in Romania

    ROMANIAN SPECIAL OCCASIONS

    Over 85 percent of the population is Romanian Orthodox. Very small minorities of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Jews make up the remainder. The Romanian calendar burgeons with fast days and feast days, lucky days and unlucky days, rites for spring and rites for winter, sheep milking festivals, harvest and seeding festivals, wine festivals and festivals for the invocation of rain. All have traditional songs and dances and often costumes and much wine and good food.

    Funeral customs exemplify many ancient pagan rites, beliefs, and symbols: dirges and funeral songs are played, special dawn ceremonies are held and many don special masks while keeping the vigil with the corpse. In the church service, the priest blesses a special plate of cooked grain, nuts and sugar in memory of the dead.

    Weddings are gay, colorful, and bursting with exuberant song and dance. One of the oldest country wedding traditions is the fertility rite of “the song of the hen.” Feasting and good times may continue more than one day.

    In Wallachia, Gypsy children parade in green-leaved costumes, knocking at each house, singing, dancing and being splashed with water by the villagers. This paparude is intended to invoke rain and is usually performed in the spring or during a drought. More water-throwing accompanies June 24, St. John’s Day, when little girls dress in costumes and hats decorated with ears of corn, singing, dancing, and uttering occasional shrieks destined to reach the ears of some unnamed corn god – another ancient tradition.

    Christmas is celebrated more quietly with caroling and good food. But the stress on agricultural themes can be seen again in many villages. New Year’s is celebrated by carrying a decorated plough from house to house accompanied with songs to ensure the next year’s good crops.

  • Domestic Life in Romania

    ROMANIAN DOMESTIC LIFE

    Romanian homes are brightly decorated with wall hangings, curtains, coverlets and tablecloths of richly intricate embroideries. Displays of folk pottery and carved wooden objects attest to an artistic people who are seldom idle with their hands. Even much of the furniture is handmade and beautifully carved and finished.

    The center of most homes, is usually the kitchen. This same room is not only the largest in the house, it is also the living room, the dining room, and the children’s bedroom. One other small room will be the parents’ bedroom and a still smaller one will be the food storage room or the pantry. A large wood-burning stove with ovens, cooktop, and open hearth will be centered against one wall of the kitchens whitewashed interior. Not only do all the good foods come from here, but so does the heat.

    Colorful earthenware dishes, mixing bowls, and casseroles for baking the many popular vegetable stews are basics of the kitchen as are the heavy cast-iron pots for soups and cooktop stews like gulyas and tokany. But most important are the utensils involved in the preparation of mamaliga. This thick cornmeal porridge that is almost all things to a Romanian is so special it is cooked in a special cast-iron pot called a ceaun and stirred with a carved wooden stick called a facalet. Finally it is turned out on to its own wooden board to cool and is cut with a special string into hearty wedges; that is, if it is not prepared to be eaten in one of countless other ways.

    Romanians prefer fresh fruits and vegetables, each in its own season. But the pantry area does hold cabbages and root vegetables that can take storage: to preserve them for winter use, vegetables that are more perishable are sometimes wrapped in leaves and buried in an earthen pit. Mostly, however, seasonal fruits are preserved as jams, fruit butters to be used for pastry fillings, dried, or cooked in heavy syrup to produce dulceata, thick sweet preserves of whole or sliced fruits or berries eaten with a spoon between sips of icy cold water and finally washed down with strong Turkish coffee. Cabbage may also be stored as barrels of sauerkraut; other vegetables will he preserved for winter and year-round use as spicy hot, sweet, or sour pickles.

  • Romanian Food

    FOODS OF ROMANIA

    DAIRY PRODUCTS

    Yogurt, soured milk, and cottage cheese head the list of dairy products in the Romanian food diet for these are not only eaten by themselves but enjoyed as parts of many other food and dishes. Sweet cream is widely used as whipped cream in pastries, and sour cream finds a place in many Hungarian and Slavic-inspired dishes.

    Even when other protein sources such as meat and fish are scarce or expensive, cheese is consumed at least once daily and often more often. Most cheeses are made from sheep’s or goat’s milk and include the Kashkaval, a firm yellow cheese, and Brinza, a soft creamy cheese. Together with the fresh cottage cheese, all cheeses are eaten as they are with breads, with mamaliga, atop casseroles, or enfolded in cakes and dumplings, yeast dough and clatite (thin crepes). Some sharp and pungent cheeses are eaten as an appetizer with Tuica (clear plum brandy) and black olives.

    FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

    The climate and fertile lands produce an abundance of quality fruits: peaches, apricots, pears, apples, plums, cherries, grapes, and many varieties of melons and berries. In season these are eaten fresh or as a compote. Some fruits are dried, others made into fruit butters and jams and the famed dulceata.

    Many varieties of vegetables are available and are eaten in quantity and variety commensurate with the budget. The Romanian food staples are cabbage and potatoes as well as the usual root vegetables. In season, many vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, and scallions are eaten raw as a side dish. Cabbage may be stored as sauerkraut, and peppers, cucumbers, etc., will be made into spicy pickles. Eggplant is one of the more popular vegetables because of its versatility as an appetizer. Vinete tocate is a vegetable stuffed with meat and rice or as the important part of musaca.

    The uses and nutritional values of vegetables are well appreciated by Romanians. Infants are fed finely pureed vegetables as one of their first solid foods. The cultivation of herbs for flavoring and medicinal purposes is widely pursued. Vegetables in colorful profusion are munched raw, nibbled as appetizers, enjoyed raw, or cooked for salads, may be stuffed, pickled, wrapped, layered, stewed, or simmered in hearty soups.

    At the very least, most vegetables will be accorded the “simple” Romanian treatment of being chopped, shredded, or diced then tossed with lard and browned onions with a little water. They are then cooked till tender, sloshed with sour cream or yogurt and blended with a little vinegar just before serving. Finally, most Romanian sauces are really only a puree of vegetables blended with oil. One way or another, everyone in Romania gets their vegetables.

    MEATS AND ALTERNATES

    Pork and veal are the favorite meats and there is no part of the animal that is not used. Meats are grilled or roasted but most often are a part of vegetable soups and stews. One of the favorite snacks is mititei, sausage-like fingers of highly seasoned ground meat grilled over an open fire and served with sour cabbage, hot pickles, and dark bread. Often tidbits of variety meats and offal – heart, liver, kidney, lungs, brain, or udder – are grilled too. Some chicken, duck, and game birds are occasionally used, but the birds are often scarce and expensive. Chicken and egg production is low and chickens are often tough.

    From the Black Sea coast, the Danube River and countless smaller rivers and lakes comes quite a good supply of fish. Sturgeon, trout, carp, pike, perch, and bream are baked or grilled and often made into soups or stews. Sturgeon roe (caviar) is expensive, but carp roe is often prepared by mashing and blending into a thick sauce with olive oil. This appetizer is called icre and may be a part of the Romanian food appetizer assortment together with salted olives and tangy cheese. Beans are used quite often in soups, salads, or casseroles.

    BREADS AND GRAINS

    Corn, wheat, oats, buckwheat, rye, barley and rice are all grown in Romania but nothing exceeds cornmeal in popularity. From this is made mamaliga. This Romanian food’s versatility equals the pasta, rice or potato staples of other peoples, and even the most affluent Romanian succumbs at least occasionally to a meal based on mamaliga. This is not difficult to enjoy, for mamaliga in its bland sweetness seems the perfect foil for meats and gravies, cottage cheese, yogurt, butter or sour cream, various vegetable sauces or simply a mound of browned mushrooms or onions. Cold, it can be sliced into wedges and eaten as a bread or sliced thinly and dipped in egg and breaded and fried in squares, layered into vegetable and/or meat casseroles, or served in the bottom of a soup plate. Sometimes mamaliga is the companion to fried or scrambled eggs, or even just sauerkraut or pickles. With mamaliga who can be hungry?

    Wheat flours are processed in various stages of refinement and used for the many pastries, cakes, tortes and desserts so beloved by the Romanians. If mamaliga is not on the table, it is certain there will be an assortment of dark and sour rye breads or crusty coarse wholewheat breads to accompany the meal. Rice and barley are used in soups and stews, in stuffed vegetables and as a base for meat and gravy dishes.

    FATS

    Lard, butter, olive oil, and sunflower seed oil are used in cooking and baking. The latter two also serve as salad dressings.

    SWEETS AND SNACKS

    Romanians are fond of sweets and they like their sweets very sweet, perhaps as an antidote to the hot peppers.

    Dulceata (fruits preserved in heavy syrup) and sweet thick Turkish coffee plus the whole range of rich tortes, layer cakes, filled cakes, honey and syrup-drenched Turkish pastries, sticky-rich dried fruits, strudels filled with fruits, nuts, poppy seeds – the list is endless. Chocolates in every form, plain or filled, are a specially treasured treat. Failing chocolates, Romanians will munch happily on raisins.

    SEASONINGS

    As in other parts of the Romanian food and cuisine, the inter-twining of Slavic and Oriental tastes is evident. Olive oil, sour cream, onions and leeks, garlic, black olives (masline), paprika, wine, and a wide range of herbs are used not just for flavor but for their other properties as well. Babies enjoy sticking sprigs of sassafras tied to their wrists. Parsley and garlic are believed to purify the blood, yogurt to aid digestion, and caraway to act as a mild laxative.

    In order to prepare the many sour soups that are a frequent part of the Romanian food menu, fermented grains, fruits, beer or vinegar or the juice from pickles or sauerkraut is used.

    BEVERAGES

    Romania’s vineyards produce a variety of good local wines enjoyed with dinner and supper and often in between, especially when mixed with soda water as a shpritz. The most popular aperitif is the clear plum brandy called Tuica or Tzuica enjoyed straight but always with appetizers such as icre, vinete tocate, masline, mititei, tiny hot peppers, pickles, or sharp cheeses. Must is an autumnal beverage of lightly fermented grape juice.

    On the sober side, clabbered milk called lapte batut is often a part of breakfast with breads or rolls (croissant or brioche) or even mamaliga. Sweetened soft drinks and cola are increasingly available, and fruit drinks called nectars are also enjoyed. Turkish coffee, tea, and herbal teas are also taken.

  • Swedish Food, Customs and Culture

    FOODS, CUSTOMS AND CULTURE OF SWEDEN

    Maintaining neutrality in two world wars, and historically the benevolent ruler of parts of the Baltic, Germany, and Finland, Sweden stands today as the wealthiest, most cosmopolitan country of Northern Europe. Sweden’s population of approximately 8.5 million makes her the fourth-largest nation in Northern Europe. Despite the fact that only 9 percent of her land is arable, Sweden is almost self-sufficient in agricultural and dairy products, meats and fish due to the efficient application of the most modern techniques of fertilization, mechanization, animal and poultry production and fishing procedures. In the late 1800s, Sweden gradually emerged as one of the important industrial nations of the world, maintaining to this day a great respect in business circles and a high reputation for fine products from industrial steel to glassware and modern furniture.

    The southern portions of Sweden enjoy moderate climate due to the prevailing westerly winds and the warming Gulf Stream. But the northern areas bordering on Finland and Norway and stretching into the Arctic Circle brave bitter temperatures and long dark winters, though they delight in two months of near continuous daylight. The many lakes and long rivers contribute to a great potential of hydroelectric energy of which only a portion is presently used.

    Making the most of her natural resources and industrial potential is only a part of Sweden’s success story. The other part must be the Swedish people themselves. Known for their lilting musical language, which has borrowed words both from French and German roots, the Swedes are also noted for their serene dispositions. Perhaps a part of their serenity stems from confidence and pride in their country; perhaps a part stems from their ordered, relaxed daily way of life. Swedes have the enviable ability to enjoy each day and rituals are an important part of that enjoyment. Everything from coffee-drinking to skoal, from table manners to holiday festivities, follow prescribed and predictable procedures. Most Swedes are Lutheran, and their relaxed attitudes also extend into their religious life.

  • Glossary of Foods and Food Terms in Scotland

    SCOTTISH FOOD GLOSSARY AND FOOD TERMS

    Arbroath Smokies: tiny haddocks smoked slowly to a dark color and strong flavor. A specialty from the east coast near Dundee.

    Ashet: an oval or rectangular baking dish with high sides and spout, especially used for pies.

    Atholl Brose: a dessert made of honey, cream, and oatmeal moistened with Scotch whiskey and served in glasses.

    Bannock: an original Scottish bread made of flour, water, and fat, leavened with baking powder and traditionally baked on a griddle (or girdle) as a flat round cake. When cut into farls (wedges), and then baked, the result is called scones. Sometimes milk or buttermilk as well as soda is added to the basic ingredients. Other variations include the addition of spices, molasses, currants, raisins or even cooked, mashed potatoes.

    Baps: small dimpled oval rolls of yeast dough. Traditionally a breakfast bread.

    Biscuits: this term may refer to the baking powder biscuits known in North America, but the term is mainly used to refer to cookies.

    Black Bun: the traditional cake for Hogmanay, a rich very dark fruitcake baked in a dough crust.

    Black Pudding: a mixture of oats, suet, and onions plus fresh animal blood cooked by steaming in a cloth.

    Blenshaw: a beverage made by blending hot milk or hot water with a small amount of oatmeal.

    Brambles: blackberries.

    Brose: a very thick porridge made with oatmeal, hot water or milk with added fat.

    Cabbie-Claw: cod.

    Caboc: a soft, buttery cheese formed into a log shape and crusted with toasted oats. Served with Baps.

    Caithness: a soft aged cheese for spreading.

    Cake: may be taken to mean cake or cookies.

    Car Cakes: a batter of oatmeal, milk or buttermilk and leavening dropped onto a griddle and cooked as pancakes.

    Carrageen: also called “Irish Moss,” a purplish, edible seaweed, gathered and dried and used to thicken gelled desserts, puddings, and custards.

    Chicken Stovies: a baked casserole made of layered, sliced chicken, potatoes and onions seasoned with salt and pepper.

    Clapshot: a popular side dish or supper dish of equal amounts of cooked mashed potatoes and turnips seasoned with salt and pepper and served with butter.

    Clootie Puddin’: a steamed dessert pudding made mainly of bread.

    Cock-A-Leekie: a rich chicken broth made with leeks. Sometimes rice or prunes are added.

    Colcannon: a combination of shredded cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and turnips all cooked together in water then drained and mashed and served with salt, pepper, and butter.

    Collops: thin slices of meat, generally referring to beef or veal.

    Cranachan: a dessert of sweetened whipped cream and toasted oatmeal. The addition of fresh fruit is optional.

    Cream Cruddie: a bland dessert similar to junket, served in a round mold accompanied by crisp oat-cakes.

    Crud: curds.

    Cullen Skink: a cream soup made with mashed potatoes and flaked, cooked, smoked haddock (See Finnan Haddie)

    Dundee Cake: a light fruit cake.

    Dunlop: a type of Cheddar cheese long popular in Scotland.

    Feather Fowlie: a rich, creamed chicken broth seasoned with herbs and garnished with slivers of ham.

    Finkadella: likely a corruption of the Danish frikadiller. Small meatballs made with ground meat and seasoning.

    Finnan Haddie: fillets of fresh haddock prepared according to the traditional style – said to have been first used in Findon, Kincardineshire – brined then smoked.

    Forfar Bridies: small pastry turnovers filled with ground meat, oatmeal and onions, seasoned with salt and pepper. Often these are garnished with cooked peas.

    Girdle: a griddle.

    Grosset or Crosert: gooseberries.

    Haggis: the traditional Scottish dish to be served at special banquets, especially for Robbie Burns’ Night or Hogmanay. A carefully blended mixture of finely ground sheep’s heart and liver, beef suet and toasted oatmeal, onions, salt and pepper is stuffed into a well-cleaned sheep’s stomach and then well steamed. Traditionally served with Neeps and Nips and mashed potatoes.

    Hattit Kit: a freshly made cream cheese made from scalded milk and buttermilk allowed to stand about 20 hours at a temperature between 80°-90°F. The mixture is placed into a cloth-lined colander and allowed to drip to separate the whey. The resulting cheese mold is chilled and served with fresh fruit and cream.

    Hodgils: poached dumplings made of suet and oats.

    Hotchpotch: a very thick soup usually made with a variety of the first garden fresh vegetables cooked in a lamb stock.

    Hough: broth.

    Howtowdie and Drappit Eggs: a stewed chicken dish finished by garnishing with poached (drappit) eggs.

    Jittet: a leg or haunch of veal or lamb.

    Kilkenny: a mixture of cooked shredded cabbage and cubed cooked potatoes seasoned with salt, pepper, and fresh cream.

    Kippers: smoked herrings.

    Lemon Butter or Lemon Curd: a type of custard made with fresh lemons, eggs and butter sweetened with sugar. It is eaten as a spread on breads or toast or used as a filling for tarts or pies.

    Lights: lungs.

    Mealie Pudding: a mixture of oatmeal, onions, and suet steamed in a cloth.

    Mealy Candy: a taffy candy made from sugar, molasses, water, and oats flavored with ginger.

    Mince: ground meat, usually heel.

    Mungo Chocolate Tablet: an uncooked chocolate fudge cut in squares.

    Musselburgh Pie: oysters wrapped in strips of beef, placed in a pan and covered with stock and pastry and oven-baked.

    Neeps and Nips: the traditional accompaniment to Haggis. Mashed turnips and “nips” of Scotch whiskey

    Nettles: another name for thistles. The young shoots are plucked, well washed and cooked and served much like spinach.

    Oatcakes: very thin crisp rounds or fads (wedges) of a mixture of fat, oats and water toasted in the oven or on a griddle (or girdle).

    Partan Bree: a creamed soup of crab meat with rice. “Partan” is the Scottish name for crab.

    Potted Hough: a jellied aspic mold of cubed beef and veal.

    Raasey Cheese: a teatime dish made of a thick sauce of eggs, milk and cheese served on toast.

    Rumbledthumps: similar to Kilkenny, a mixture of cooked cabbage and potatoes, but oven-baked and topped with grated cheese.

    Scotch Barley Broth: a well-known soup of lamb or mutton broth simmered with vegetables and barley.

    Scotch Crumpets: small dessert crepes served with cinnamon sugar.

    Scotch Eggs: peeled hard-boiled eggs wrapped in sausage meat, then coated with crumbs or oatmeal and deep-fried.

    Scotch or Irish Oatmeal: unlike the familiar rolled oats commonly used in North America this is more like a coarse mealy flour made from oats.

  • Meals and Customs in Scotland

    SCOTTISH MEALS AND CUSTOMS

    It has been said that the best Scottish meals are breakfast and tea. But those who have enjoyed fine black Angus beef or rich Scottish salmon may well have a quarrel. And though there has long been a Scottish superstition (especially in the north) against shell-fish and seafood as “the lice of the sea,” many Scots do enjoy locally caught shrimps, mussels, winkles, crab, and lobster. But those persisting in the old beliefs hold that salmon, cod, haddock, or herring can’t be beaten for a fine meal.

    Generally Scots prefer a few simple good dishes for a meal rather than many courses and elaborate service. What they lose in variations they make up in hearty servings. Scottish hospitality is legendary: no one leaves a table hungry no matter how simple the fare.

    A Scottish breakfast will likely include oatmeal porridge made from finely milled, unrolled oats and served with cool milk or cream. Traditionally each spoon of hot porridge is dipped in milk to cool it. Toast with butter, preserves, and a cup of tea complete the meal. More elaborate breakfasts may include a fish dish, bacon, assorted cheeses and tea breads.

    The noon dinner often consists of a hearty meat and vegetable soup, a dessert of steamed pudding, custard or baked bread pudding and tea.

    Often the highlight of the day will be the tea served in the late afternoon at about five-thirty. Here will be the display of breads and cakes, preserves and marmalades that Scotland is famed for: baps, bannocks, scones, tarts, and buns all served with strong tea, milk and sugar. Chops or sausages with eggs or a dish of sole, kippers, or salmon may accompany the tea.

    Perhaps because the late afternoon tea is so special, the evening meal is usually light and includes only one course: either sausages, bacon, chops with eggs and a garnish of peas or a mashed vegetable combination dish served with a glass of buttermilk. In humbler homes, the evening supper may be just a bowl of hot porridge made of oats or barley and served with milk.

  • Foods Commonly Used in Scotland

    SCOTTISH FOODS THAT ARE COMMONLY USED

    Hearty soups, fish dishes, and a great variety of quick breads and cakes (leavened with soda or baking powder rather than yeast) are the staples in a Scottish kitchen. Fish may be considered one of the most important staples, but dairy products are also used in abundance. Fruits are used mainly in season and in the form of jellies, preserves, and marmalades rather than fresh fruits to satisfy the Scottish sweet tooth. Garden vegetables are popular but kale and seaweed, cabbage and potatoes are the favorites. Thistle leaves may be used as a food but usually only in times of necessity.

    North Americans tend to think of oatmeal as a breakfast cereal and perhaps occasionally as a component of breads and cookies. But the Scottish use of oatmeal has stimulated an astonishing array of recipes including beverages, soups, meat and fish dishes, puddings, dumplings, stuffing and many desserts and baked goods. There is even a popular cheese which is sold coated in oatmeal.

    Though Scottish food may be prepared with a minimum of seasonings and a maximum of cooking, it is nonetheless substantial and filling.

  • Special Occasions in Scotland

    SCOTTISH SPECIAL OCCASIONS

    The Presbyterian Church of Scotland has more than a million followers. The Roman Catholic Church is second in importance with other denominations following in much lesser numbers. Christmas in Scotland is a one-day holiday highlighted with a festive family dinner at noon featuring roast chicken, mashed potatoes and turnips and climaxed with a flaming steamed fruit pudding.

    But the merriest days on the Scottish calendar are Hogmanay and Robbie Burns’ Night. Hogmanay is the day before New Year’s and probably the only day in the year when everyone takes a holiday. This is the time for gifts and merrymaking, for nibbling nuts and eating juicy imported oranges. It is also the time for the finest bakery from the kitchen – black bun, fragrant cherry and currant cakes, crispy delicate shortbreads – all to be accompanied with port wine, ginger wine or Scotch whiskey. Later in the evening after midnight, all present enjoy a buffet meal of cold ham, roasted fowl and other meats, scones, bannocks and sweet butter to be followed yet again by the array of cakes and buns till all are happily sated.

    Robbie Burns’ Night is the celebration marking the birth of the great Scottish poet. It is celebrated on January 25 and is only slightly less important than Hogmanay. For public banquets both occasions may be marked with the almost-mystical preparation of the haggis, served with great ceremony to the accompaniment of the pipes and many a nip of Scotch whiskey.

  • Domestic Life in Scotland

    SCOTTISH DOMESTIC LIFE

    Simplicity and practicality, so much a part of the Scottish diet, are also a part of the Scottish kitchen. Utensils are sturdy and useful rather than ornamental, and many pieces of kitchenware (as well as recipes) have been handed down from mother to daughter. There are few gadgets, fewer luxury-type electrical appliances, and a more limited spice shelf than typically found in North American kitchens. Refrigerators generally are smaller because cold pantries are frequently found as an adjunct to the Scottish kitchen, pantries being practical for food storage in a moderately cool climate.

    Greaseproof paper is still widely used for baking pans, iron griddles are still favored for scones and bannocks, and carved thistle presses are still used to shape the traditional Scottish shortbread. But other traditional utensils are declining in general usage. These include the spurtle, a stick with a thistle-shaped handle used for stirring porridge; and the ashete, the traditional oval or rectangular enameled baking dishes with high sides to support a pastry crust. Surprisingly these age-old utensils are being snapped up by collectors and treasured by novice gourmet cooks in other lands.