Old Scottish cookbooks

[nuppe]

Does anyone know old Scottish cookboks from the period 1840-1920, which are worth mentioning? (Works about British cookbooks as historical sources are also of interest.)

[Doodad]

I do not mean to hijack, but this made me laugh. Being from a very ancient and proud Scottish family I can only imagine the essence of Scottish cooking distilled (hah) to one simple outline:

1. Get food

2. Boil food

3. Eat food

4. Wash down with ale

5. Get back to work; don't you know time is money?

[Mrs Foodie]

I think it is boil food (for that read oats) and place in a drawer. Then, when the oats are dried, cut a cube to take with you for your breakfast or lunch.

Of course this is pre the famous "get food, dip it in batter and deep fry and serve with chips (French fries) and ketchup" which is the Scots ethos today!

[dougal]

Does anyone know old Scottish cookboks from the period 1840-1920, which are worth mentioning? (Works about British cookbooks as historical sources are also of interest.)

You might care to start with Lady Clark of Tiilypronie http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cookery-Tillypronie-Southover-Historic-Housekeeping/dp/1870962109

[LornaC]

Not quite 1840 but when I was training in Glasgow some! years ago we used 'The Glasgow Cookery Book' it was first published in 1910 I think and was the bible of the 'Dough Scool' the cooks training college. It is available on Amazon too.

[Blether]

You might also look for The Household Book 1692-1733, Lady Grinsell (!) Baillie, Edinburgh 1911

The Domestic Life of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century, M. Plant, Edinburgh 1952

(The above culled from China de Burnay's Under the Influence of Bright Sunbeams, which as I've mentioned before carries a three-page biblioghraphy of historical sources. Does that address your second question ?)

Jane Grigson quotes Fynes Moryson (qv), who "had a sane charity for all men, except Turks and Irish priests" in her notes on cock-a-leekie.

Lastly, you may get something out of Marguerite Patten's A Century of British Cooking which covers 1900-2000.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Blether (log)

[Blether]

From foodtimeline there's this

"Scottish food derives from several cultures. First the Celtic culture, which makes good use of oatmeal and the griddle or girdle...There countries, too, were visited by Norsemen and this led to Scandinavian methods of curing and salting fish and also pork. Salted and smoked mutton is a traditional food both in Scotland and Scandinavia. It is probably that the original Aberdeen Angus cattle were of Viking stock."

---Traditional Scottish Cookery, Theodora Fitzgibbon [Fontana:Suffolk] 1980

and these:

British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History, Colin Spencer

A Taste of History: 10,000 Years of Food in Britain, Peter Brears et al

Food and Drink in Britain From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson

- amongst a wealth of others. I'm intrigued to discover under the heading 'digitised period cookbooks' that The Forme of Cury is available online.

In December I had some fun reading the recipes in John Mollard's The Art of Cookery (2nd ed., London 1802), online thanks to Google Books. This is of course British rather than Scottish.

Thanks again are due to Google Books for Scottish Food and Scottish History, 1500-1800 by Gibsom and Smout, which is chapter 2 of Houston & Whyte's Scottish Society 1500-1800. (This and The Forme of Cury are of course outside your reference period).

All this, but sorry, nothing on Scotland's famous tempura.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Blether (log)

[dougal]

...

All this, but sorry, nothing on Scotland's famous tempura.

Dinnae fret yersel, laddie.

Fried, batter-coated chocolate bars would be a late 20th century addition to the national culinary traditions.

[Blether]

Fash masel' ?

... "get food, dip it in batter and deep fry and serve with chips (French fries) and ketchup"

... and ketchup's no in it

[jackal10]

"The Cook and Housewife's manual: a Practical System of Modern Domestic Cookery and Family management; containing a Compendium of French Cookery and of Fashionable confectionary, preparations for invalids and convalescents, a Selection of Cheap Dishes"... Mistress Margaret Dods

Orinally published about 1826, there were at least six editions up to 1864, and many copies are available online (eg www.bookfinder.com)

There was a reprint in 1988

Meg Dods was the the innkeeper in Scott’s novel ST RONAN’S WELL but but she is said to have been modeled on Miss Marian Ritchie, the landlady of his local inn, the Cross Keys in Pebbles

“The kitchen was her pride and glory; she looked to the dressing of every dish herself, and there were some with which she suffered no-one to interfere. Such were the cock-a-leeky, and the savoury minced collops……”

ST. RONAN’S WELL was published in 1823, and such was the success of the figure of Meg Dods that three years later one of the earliest Scottish cookery books was published under her name.

Tha actual author was Christian Isobel Johnston

Edited January 8, 2010 by jackal10 (log)

[Blether]

A great find, jackal10. Thank-you.

[nuppe]

Thank you all, including Doodad! Right now I'm too much busy to take part in my own discussion, but yours is most helpful! I'll come back.

[Blether]

The Scots Kitchen by F. Marian McNeill (first published 1929).

[Adam Balic]

"The Scots Kitchen" mentioned above is a wonderful book, documenting a great deal of Scottish food culture, and is also likely the source of some "Modern Scottish Classics", such as Cullen Skink and Cloutie Dumpling. The first edition has more in it, but later editions contain important recipes like Cloutie Dumpling.

Meg Dods is a classic text.

Practice of cookery and pastry, adapted to the business of everyday life By Mrs. I. Williamson shows the type of cooking that took place in the New Town of Edinburgh during the middle of the 19th century.

In the 20th century there are Scottish WI type books that can be found on ebay. There are also the "The Glasgow Cookery Book", "The Edinburgh Book of Plain Cookery Recipes" and "The Edinburgh book of advanced cookery recipes", although the latter two are a little later then you date of interest.