Direct Flight From Edinburgh to Troy Michigan

From: Joel M. Eichen (joeleichen_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 03/03/05 

Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:58:30 -0500

ONE HINT:

Leave the kilts home.

Joel

**

Posted on Thu, Mar. 03, 2005
 
 
  
  R E L A T E D C O N T E N T
 
 
Breakfast is served with a view at Skibo Castle.
 
 
 

Scottish surprise

Stereotypes fade fast with the abundance of great food in shops and
restaurants.

By Kathryn Matthews

For The Inquirer

When I set out for a recent trip to Scotland, it was with visions of
castles and kings, windswept moors and roiling North Sea waters,
kilt-clad clansmen and bagpipe bands.

But Scottish cuisine, surprisingly enough, was the real revelation.

Contrary to my expectations (which were dreadfully low, I confess),
the food was good. Better than good, in fact: Much of it was
delicious.

Like England "down south," as the Scots like to say, Scotland has come
a long way from fish-and-chips and ***-a-leekie. It's gone through
its own culinary revolution. Much of it revolves around showcasing
local ingredients - Atlantic-caught salmon, Aberdeen Angus beef, wild
game, sun-ripened berries - with imagination and flair.

Good food, both domestic and imported, wasn't hard to find. Scotland's
best farmhouse cheeses, like snow-white Bonnet (goat), organic
Criffel, and the nutty cloth-covered Dunlop, along with every preserve
and relish imaginable, were piled high at I.J. Mellis Cheesemonger on
cobblestone Victoria Street in Edinburgh. Fat knots of salami and
Milan-imported vegetables vied for my attention, as did a top-notch
wine selection, at Valvona & Carolla on Elm Row, the city's popular
Italian family-run deli and specialty food shop. And there were real
Highland smoked venison, steak pie and organic oatcakes lining the
impressive food hall at Jenner's, which claims to be the world's
oldest department store, on Princes Street.

Restaurants are thriving, too. In the last decade, a new breed of
chefs, often trained abroad, have returned home and demonstrate a
newfound appreciation for homegrown ingredients. Among them is
London-trained Martin Wishart, 34, who opened his eponymous restaurant
in Edinburgh five years ago with his wife, Cecile.

"There's more than one way to show off our superb ingredients," says
Wishart, a handsome man with a quiet, earnest demeanor. His
beautifully executed modern French cuisine gives center stage to prime
Scottish produce.

His menu includes local langoustines (caught in the Moray Firth),
folded into an appetizer risotto, enriched with sabayon, mascarpone, a
touch of cream and French summer truffles; and braised panko-crusted
pork cheek, spiked with hand-ground five-spice powder and served on a
bed of roasted apple and baby spring vegetables, a mouthwatering
Asian-inflected take on roast pork and applesauce.

In the Highland countryside, David Graham, head chef at the
Glenmorangie House in Cadboll, also procures locally: There are
shellfish and venison from Balintore, grass-fed Aberdeen Angus beef
from verdant Inverurie, and lamb bred on the Outer Hebrides,
Scotland's western isles, which he uses in a loin of lamb with red
wine sauce and an aubergine and mint compote.

The "simple, quality ingredients" he extols extend to produce and
herbs harvested from a prodigious garden on the grounds. I enjoyed his
new potato salad dressed in herbs and crθme fraiche, and a
feather-light iced cranachan parfait - a heather honey and
oatmeal-based Scottish pudding, lush with sweet-tart raspberries.

Two nights later, I found myself enamored with the deliciously
straightforward Scottish country cooking-from-scratch of Eileen
Malone, the chef-owner of Country Catering in Perthshire. It was a
sumptuous spread of rich, meaty game pie; souffle-soft red
pepper-and-aubergine terrine; garden-fresh herbs and baby greens
dressed in mustard-cider vinaigrette; wild Atlantic salmon, baked
whole and feathered with dill and fennel; and succulent spit-roasted
suckling baby pig. Feasting without shame, I had no doubt that
Malone's cooking would have inspired accolades at any medieval Celtic
banquet.

As it turns out, fiftysomething Malone, a petite, spry figure in
constant multitasking motion, does research and updates old Scottish
recipes. She doesn't like "fussy food," but it must be visually
appealing because "you eat with your eyes first," she says, tapping
her funky, rose-rimmed glasses for emphasis.

It was with more than fleeting curiosity that I accepted an invitation
to lunch at Skibo Castle, Andrew Carnegie's Highland summer home in
Dornoch and now a members-only club. After all, I had grown up in
Pittsburgh and attended art school at the Carnegie Institute.

Gazing out at the stunning 7,500-acre expanse, I wondered: How did the
son of a humble Scottish weaver who rose to Pittsburgh steel magnate
eat? Simply, I discovered. According to his great-great-granddaughter
Claire, Carnegie was a teetotaler, but indulged his sweet tooth with
plum pudding. The world's richest man at the turn of the 20th century
was also fanatical about porridge. So much so, says Skibo club
director David Richardson, that during World War I, he applied for
military permission to import one ton of oatmeal from Scotland to the
United States.

Still, simple can be good, I found, digging into a roast leg of lamb
fragrantly endowed with rosemary jus, mint sauce and a colorful
melange of squash and potatoes. And the spongy, delightfully eggy
bread-and-butter pudding, layered with raisins, sated my sweet tooth.

Although creative Scottish cooking is making headlines, make no
mistake - the unapologetically carbohydrate-dense "full Scottish
breakfast," devoid of trendy fusion accents, is alive and well.

At the lovely MacKinnon Country House Hotel on the Isle of Skye, Ian
Tone, the stocky, kilt-wearing owner, broke into a snaggle-toothed
grin when I ordered the full Monty. "A good appetite, have ye?" Tone
asked, delivering to my table a breakfast caloric enough to feed the
entire state of Pennsylvania: whole wheat toast smeared with
strawberry confit, scrambled eggs, plump sausages, potato scones,
grilled tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms and two savory "puddings" -
Stornaway black pudding, a fried disk of pig's blood seasoned with
beef suet, oatmeal and spices; and fruit pudding, a fine bread-crumb
mixture of flour, beef suet, currants and spices.

Staggering from the sunlit nook, unspeakably full, I wished that my
agenda included more physically taxing activities, like plowing a
field or hiking the Himalayas.

The greatest culinary epiphany for me was Scottish whiskey cake, which
makes American fruitcake seem a blasphemy. I was especially wild about
those made by Brodie's of Edinburgh and snapped up a half-dozen of the
small cakes, dense with currants and sultanas, generously laced with
whiskey and packed in pretty tins.

My whiskey cakes and I arrived back home in the States without
incident. But when my husband and I taste-tested one for quality
assurance, one bite turned into another, and not long afterward, these
designated Christmas gifts disappeared.

Lucky for me, they are available online.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dining In Dining Out
• Ian J. Mellis, 30a Victoria St., Edinburgh; 131-226-6215,
www.ijmellischeesemonger.com.

• Valvona & Crolla, 19 Elm Row, Edinburgh; 131-556-6066,
www.valvonacrolla.co.uk.

• Jenner's Department Store, 48 Princes St., Edinburgh; 131-225-2442,
www.jenners.com.

• Brodie's of Edinburgh fruitcakes,www.brodies1867.co.uk/
specialty_cakes.htm or www.thescottishgrocer.com.

• Restaurant Martin Wishart, 54 The Shore (of Leigh), Edinburgh;
131-553-3557, www.martin-wishart.co.uk.

• Glenmorangie House,Cadboll Farm, by Tain; 186-287-1671,
www.glenmorangie.com.

• Skibo Castle, Dornoch, Sutherland; 186-289-4600,
www.carnegieclub.co.uk.

• MacKinnon Country House Hotel, Kyleakin, Isle of Skye; 159-953-4180,
www.mackinnonhotel.co.uk.
 

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