HelenMac

The best description that I can find is for an own label version which says "Carbonated mixed fruit flavour soft drink with sugar and sweeteners" and I belive it contains caffine, quinine and some thing called Ammonium Ferric Citrate what ever that is. I haven't tasted it for over 50 years and hated as a child. I know that they had to reduce the amount of sugar that it contained a few years ago - so die hard fans think it isn't the same. Own label ingredient list is - Carbonated Water, Sugar, Citric Acid, Flavourings (contains Caffeine), Fruit and Vegetable Concentrates [Safflower, Lemon, Black Carrot, Blackcurrant], Acidity Regulator (Sodium Citrates), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Sweeteners (Sucralose, Acesulfame K), Ferric Ammonium Citrate. Actual Irn Bru says - Carbonated Water, Sugar, Acid (Citric Acid), Flavourings (including Caffeine, Ammonium Ferric Citrate & Quinine), Sweeteners (Aspartame, Acesulfame K), Preservative (E211), Colours (Sunset Yellow FCF, Ponceau 4R) Query on the internet says "It's orange, fizzy and tastes like liquid bubble gum. And while whisky is Scotland's national drink to the world, to many locals, Irn Bru is a close second" also it contains 32 flavours. As well as someone said tastes similar to an orange cream soda, Circus Peanuts in the US or contains banana flavour. A German said it was like a German tutti fruitti drink but no more description that that. I hope that gives you some ideas.

You might also like to check out books by Theodora FitzGibbon. Back in the 70's & 80's she wrote a series called "A taste of ...." she covered Scotland, Ireland and Wales, then split England into regions. She wrote other Irish and British cookbooks. You will have to look for second hand books apart from - "The Pleasures of the Table: Rediscovering Theodora FitzGibbon / Donal Skehan" which was published in 2014 with colour photographs. Looking at her page on Wikipedia her career choices were very similar to Elizabeth David. I also discovered "English Recipes & Tradional Dishes Of Scotland, Wales & Ireland by Countess Morphy" who was an American, written back in 1935. Apparently she gave cookery demonstrations in Selfridge's in London - one of which Elizabeth David attended. Below are links where you will find a lot of tradional Welsh recipes. https://museum.wales/collections/welsh-fare/ https://www.visitwales.com/things-do/food-drink/welsh-food https://americymru.net/the-welsh-kitchen-welsh-recipes-cuisine For more modern Welsh cookbooks look at https://www.welshgifts.co.uk/welsh-gifts-welsh-books-welsh-cookery-recipe-books.irc https://www.graffeg.com/books/cooking/ or Amazon of course. Some Welsh authors to look for are Annette Yates, Bobby Freeman, Gilli Davies and Thomas Kelly. There is a lot to look at! Good hunting.

I would recommend The Cookin Woman and Ballymaloe books. You may find The Ballymaloe Cookbook by Myrtle Allen is what you want (she was Darina's mother in law) - there are a couple of different editions. Some out of print books to look for are by Maura Laverty or Monica Sheridan. In 2015 'All in the Cooking' was republished by O’ Brien Press. It was used by the students of Coláiste Mhuire Cookery School in Cathal Brugha Street in Dublin from the 1940's and remained in use in schools and colleges throughout Ireland until the 1970’s. You can see a couple of pages on the O' Brien Press website. It is old fashioned - no photographs. Or on the UK Amazon site I also found 'All About Home Economics' by Deirdre Madden first published in 1983. It says it was the seminal text for Irish students studying Home Economics for over 15 years, so it may be more updated. Also on Amazon were 'An Irish Farmhouse Cookbook' by Mary Kinsella, 'In An Irish Country Kitchen' by Clare Connery, 'The Irish Heritage Cookbook' by Georgina Campbell and 'Best of Irish Traditional Cooking' by Biddy White Lennon. You might want to look at cookbooks from The Irish Country Womens Association or The Federation of Women’s Institutes of Northern Ireland. I think will be a mix of traditional and modern recipes. You can probably find them on Ebay. For Scottish recipes I can recommend any of the Maw Broon's Cookbooks which are fun as they are printed to look like scrapbooks with hand written recipes and magazine clippings. I hope you find something there which fulfills your needs.