Fooooood!

The food here is…. interesting.  There is a lot of hearty food to keep you warm through the cold Scottish winters.  I’d say meat and potatoes comprise most of the Scottish food pyramid.

My favorite thing are the pies, which has a pastry crust and can be filled with anything -- mince, onions, peas, or steak.  It is so nice!

At the school cafeteria we have a traditional breakfast of fried eggs, baked beans, fried ham, sausage, hash browns, grilled tomatoes, and toast.   

I’m slowly getting used to such a heavy, fatty breakfast, but I guess it keeps you warm and full!  Alongside the ham and sausage is usually black pudding, which is sausage stuffed with animal blood.  I’m not brave enough to try that.

Some things we have for dinner traditionally are curries (beef, lamb, vegetable, etc) over rice, which are really good, or stoved tatties—a vegetable and potato dish.  Another thing that makes my stomach turn a little is haggis—made with the windpipe, lungs, heart and liver of a sheep.  It’s boiled, minced, and mixed with beef suet and lightly toasted oatmeal. This mixture is placed inside the sheep's stomach, which is sewn closed and boiled further.  They served it in the cafeteria and I tried it.  It definitely wasn’t bad, but just knowing WHAT it was made it hard to enjoy.
 

Every meal has at LEAST 2 forms of potatoes.  The Scots love their potatoes.  There are also a lot of turnips—called “neeps”—prepared in various ways.  My favorite is mashed neeps. 

                                                  Haggis, neeps, tatties (potatoes)

The best aspect of Scotland’s food is the CHOCOLATE!  There is a huge selection of Cadbury’s. 

  The chocolate here is definitely a lot sweeter than chocolate in the U.S.  There is also lots of yummy candy- called “sweeties” here.  The one thing I really miss are good old chocolate chip cookies.  There are biscuits here- which are typically more like shortbread cookies.  And I’ve tried a  chocolate chip cookies but they do NOT taste the same! They are much crumblier here.  And not as delicious!