The famous food and drink of scotland

It’s August which means the wonderful Edinburgh Festival is upon us once again. Scotland has given the world many great things over the years: great comedy, brilliant music, tartan, and Taggart, to name but a few. Beyond the vast landscape or arts and culture, however, bonnie Scotland has also carved out its own niche in the world of food and drink.

Here are seven traditional consumables that Scotland is famous for – some weird, some wonderful, but all uniquely Scottish.

Scotland’s national dish and one immortalised in Robert Burns’ famous poem, Address to Haggis. Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs, minced with onions, suet, oatmeal, spices, and salt. Traditionally boiled in the stomach of the animal, haggis is today more commonly prepared in sausage casing and served up with neeps and tatties (turnip and potato). The pudding can be served up as part of a Scottish breakfast, dinner, or supper and is sometimes enjoyed with another of Scotland’s favourite foods, black pudding. Speaking of which …

Black pudding is a mixture of suet, oats, blood, barley, and spices stuffed into a length of protein casing. It is traditionally a breakfast favourite across the UK, but has recently been popping up on the menus of top restaurants across the country. Stornoway Black Pudding, Scotland’s most cherished type of black pudding, is so important that is was awarded protected status.

A famous Scottish export to rival Rod Stewart, shortbread is a melt-in-the-mouth buttery biscuit, baked in a round, flat shape, pricked with a fork, and served with a generous sprinkling of caster sugar.

Breakfast just isn’t breakfast in Scotland without a hot bowl of traditional porridge. Made from oatmeal, water and a little added salt, and stirred up with a ‘spurtle’ [for those who don’t have specialist cooking equipment, a wooden spoon will work just fine] , porridge is the perfect meal to set you up for the day. For those who like a bit more variety, milk, dried fruit, and brown sugar can be added to the dish to sweeten it up.

Stovies is a type of stew that was originally made from the leftovers of a Sunday roast (Scot’s don’t like to waste food), containing meat, onions, and potatoes. Using these ingredients (chicken, beef, lamb, or corned beef are the most common meat choices), along with diced vegetables, you can easily make stovies from scratch and serve it with oatcakes.

Atholl Brose is a wonderful cocktail made by mixing oatmeal brose, honey, whiskey, and cream. Resembling Bailey’s Irish Cream, Atholl Brose has also become another name for the desert Cranachan, which uses the same ingredients. According to legend, the drink is named after the first Earl of Atholl.

It is common knowledge that the best whisky in the world comes from Scotland. The country exports around £2 billion worth of the stuff globally every year. From Scotland’s oldest whisky, Famous Grouse, to the purists favourite Johnnie Walker Black Label, you’ll not find a better scotch anywhere else.