Boiled stag’s head soup suits to a tea
IN GLASGOW they say, ‘You’ll have your tea’, and invite you in. In Edinburgh it’s, ‘You’ll have had your tea’, meaning, ‘We assume you have eaten and won’t need anything here’.
The friendly rivalry which exists between these cities has, perhaps, never been put more succinctly than by Lord Cockburn (1779-1854), a famous Scottish lawyer, in his pithy remark that the people of Edinburgh are what they are because when they were conceived their parents were fully clothed.
Having championed the Clydesiders, I was slightly taken aback last year in a holiday cottage in Lochaline when the Glasgow-born hostess, who should have known better, handed me a cup of tea with the comment, ‘You’ll not be wanting a biscuit’!
Such awkwardness was rarely found in the West Highlands and Islands, where free and open hospitality survived much later than anywhere else in the UK.
Fynes Morison, a graduate of Cambridge, visited Scotland in 1598 and commented on the lack of inns and the number of private householders who entertained passers-by. It was precisely because of this tradition that inns and hotels took so long to become established.
The lavish hospitality of the old Highland chiefs was equal only to their vanity and eccentricity.
A great hero was Clanranald, who, according to the old folk, would have seven casks of red Spanish wine in his stable and, if a stranger asked why, he would be told it was for his horses.
A McNeill chief went one better. Each night after dinner, he sent a trumpeter to the tower of Kismuil castle to proclaim: ‘Ye kings, princes and chieftains of all the earth, be it known unto you that MacNeill of Barra has dined, so others may now do so.’
Alexander Carmichael, the Lismore customs and excise officer and folklore collector, describes visiting a house in the Outer Hebrides before 1900 where he was asked to the table: ‘There were fried herrings and boiled turbot, fresh from the sea, and eggs fresh from the yard. There was fresh butter and salt butter, wheaten scones, barley bannocks, and oat-cakes, with excellent tea and cream. This, said I, taking my seat, looks like the table for a reiteach [pre-wedding feast] rather than for one man.’
I know of private houses in the Highlands where extra places are still set at the dining room table in case a visitor turns up unexpectedly - based, no doubt, on Hebrews 13:2, ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’
On Arran, doors were seldom locked, even when the occupants went away for a day or two; anyone passing far from home and in need of nourishment, would simply go in and help themselves.
A nice reciprocal arrangement in the days of mutual trust and respect.
What did people eat a century or so ago – and how was it cooked? Recipes are great sources.
I will begin with one for venison pasty which was invented by a French chef called Alexander Guiblin, who travelled up from Derbyshire with the Strutt family to Kingairloch in the early 1930s to cook for them during the sporting seasons. When he left, he returned to Belper and set up a very successful pork pie shop there, which flourished for years.
‘Use roasted, braised or boiled venison. Mince the meat finely, make a brown sauce with two small onions; two ounces of lean ham; two ounces of fat or butter; twelve peppercorns, crushed; one bay leafe, one carrot and a little thyme fried till brown.
‘Add a little flour, put a glass of port wine and a little gravy from the meat. Add a little salt and a teaspoonful of Worcester sauce in, then strain to the meat and put into the paste and bake in a moderate oven for about half an hour.’
Chef Guiblin also made delicious game soups, which the next generation of the Strutt family recalled: ‘Use venison or game. Make a good stock of the game or venison bones. Have a carrot, two onions, one turnip, two ounces of flour, two ounces of butter or fat and one quart of the stock.
‘Clean the vegetables, cut them into slices. Melt the butter or fat in a saucepan, add the vegetables, and fry until a good brown colour. Stir in the flour and fry this also for a few minutes. Moisten it with the stock and stir over the fire until the soup boils. Let it simmer for about half an hour. Remove the fat, and season to taste with pepper and salt and a glassful of port wine.’
People ate what was readily available in the area in which they lived. Those on the West Coast enjoyed the usual assortment of sea fish, while others near the mouth of estuaries and along river banks, dined mainly on salmon and sea trout.
Here is an old recipe for kippering salmon: ‘The fish must be cut up at the back, cleaned and scaled but not washed, and have the bone taken neatly out. Rub with equal proportions of salt or fine raw sugar, with a little saltpetre. Let the fish lie for two days, pressing it with a board on which weights are placed, then hang it up. Peppers in powder may be added to the salt. This forms a favourite addition to a scotch breakfast. If long hung, the slices may be soaked in water for quarter of an hour. If the fish is very large it may be rubbed with salt and drained for a day.’
On the moors and glens, there were other delicacies in the game department such as ‘haggis royal’, consisting of mutton, suet, beef-marrow, bread crumbs or oatmeal, anchovies, parsley, lemon, pepper, cayenne, eggs and red wine.
To make: ‘Take three pounds of leg of mutton chopped, a pound of suet chopped, a little, or rather as much beef-marrow as you can spare, the crumb of a penny loaf, the beat yolks of four eggs, a half pint of red wine, three mellow fresh anchovies boned, minced parsley, lemon grate, white pepper, crystals of cayenne to taste. Blend the ingredients well, truss them neatly in a veal caul (net) bake in a deep dish, in a quick oven, and turn out. Serve hot as fire, with brown gravy, and venison sauce.’
From the high tops there was a recipe for an antlered beauty. ‘Take a fresh stag’s head. Split open and wash well, remove fibres and the brains. Boil the head along with three to four pounds of venison, one dozen peppercorns, a few cloves and one teaspoonful of salt, in about three quarts water for eight hours. Strain and leave till the following day.
‘When required, remove all fat and put stock into a pan with one carrot, onion and a small turnip. Leave to simmer for an hour, taking the lid off the pan in order that the stock can reduce. Thicken to creamy consistency with corn-flour and boil for five minutes. Strain out the vegetables and serve with a garnish of shredded carrot, turnip and tongue.’
It sounds disgusting!