Amazon.co.uk Review
Those prepared to look beyond shortbread in a tartan tin and the deep- fried Mars Bar have always known that traditional Scottish food is characterised above all by the sheer quality and variety of ingredients. The cooking itself is often quite simple, its purpose being to deliver those flavours with the maximum of impact and the minimum of interference. It is, of course, precisely these qualities of immediacy and depth of flavour that tend to be lost as food is increasingly processed, pre-packed and detached from its place in the seasonal calendar.
Catherine Brown's marvellous A Year in a Scots Kitchen celebrates a return to the local and seasonal provision of food, as she proceeds around the year, starting at the ancient Celtic New Year (which we celebrate as Halloween). It also celebrates the many small producers--farmers, cheese-makers, fishermen, butchers and bakers--as well as those cooks in the kitchens of modern Scotland who keep alive the old traditions and at the same time are constantly adding to them, as their predecessors did. Catherine Brown's knowledge of food in Scotland is broad and deep; and the recipes she includes are embedded, quite rightly, in a fascinating account of Scottish culinary habits and their history. Indeed, the book is as much a history of Scottish foodstuffs as it is a cookbook. Many recipes are given in different forms, from different eras, sometimes concluding with a slightly surprising modern take on it. From Cock-a-Leekie, Brose and Stovies in November, we move through Haggis, Salmon and Pancakes in Spring. Oatcakes, the incomparable berries grown in the country, and shellfish such as lobster and crab characterise the long northern summer days; as Winter approaches, the attention turns to game, smoked fish and cured meats and the abundant mushrooms of the Scottish autumn. Very highly recommended indeed.--Robin Davidson
Review
"Cookery book of the year". Nigel Slater of the Observer.
