Scottish Country Dance of the Day

Shortbread originated in Scotland, with the first printed recipe appearing in 1736, from a Scotswoman named Mrs. McLintock. Shortbread was so popular, early Scottish bakers fought to prevent shortbread from being classified as a biscuit to avoid paying a government biscuit tax! Do you have a family or favourite shortbread recipe with just the right proportions of butter, sugar, and flour (and maybe some salt to enhance the flavour)? Or maybe you fancy the occasional addition of chai, rosemary, lemon, or chocolate - flavours compatible with a sweet biscuit. Some recent shortbread trends may not be for everyone. One trendy addition is adding the flavour of Katsuobushi, a smoked, aged and dried skipjack tuna, which gives an unusual umami character! Hmmm ... you have to draw a line in the flour somewhere. Although we have not found the namesake recipe referenced by the dance, included are traditional regional variations such as: Pitcaithly Bannock (almonds, caraway seeds, crystallized orange) and Yetholm Bannock (chopped ginger)! 🧈

The island of Foula, part of the Shetland archipelago of islands, is one of the United Kingdom’s most remote permanently inhabited islands and named from the Old Norse Fugla-ey, meaning "Bird island." Seabirds and moorland birds, including 'Bonxies' – the Shetland dialect name for the Great Skua – as well as Puffins, Kittiwakes, Guillemots, Arctic terns, red-throated divers, Fulmars, amongst others, inhabit the sandstone cliffs and open moorland. Foula remained on the Julian calendar when the rest of the Kingdom of Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, keeping 1800 as a leap year, but not observing leap year in 1900. As a result, Foula is now one day ahead of the Julian calendar and 12 days behind the Gregorian, observing Christmas Day on the 6th of January and New Year's Day on the 13th! The traditional fishing grounds for fishermen from the isle of Papa Stour (lying roughly a mile off the west coast of Shetland) lay way off into the Atlantic. The fishermen would row west to the point where the cliffs of Foula would disappear into the horizon . This was "Rowing Foula down." 🦅 🦆 🐦

The brew is first recorded in 1475 during the campaign of the Earl of Atholl to capture Iain MacDonald, Lord of the Isles who was leading a rebellion against the king. Hearing that MacDonald drank from a small well, the Earl ordered it to be filled with honey, whisky and oatmeal. Allegedly, MacDonald stayed sampling the delicious concoction and was captured!

Originally enjoyed on Christmas and Twelfth Night, Black Bun is now consumed year round, but most traditionally on Hogmanay Night. The great Scottish folklorist F. Marian McNeill writes: “Black bun is the old Scottish Twelfth Night Cake which was transferred to Hogmanay after the banning of Christmas and its subsidiary festival, Uphalieday, or Twelfth Night, by the Reformers.” So, enjoy your fierce raisin devils and gay currant sprites with impunity - recipe included!

Shortbread was an expensive luxury in times past and for ordinary people, usually reserved for special occasions such as weddings, Christmas and New Year celebrations. In Shetland it was traditional to break a decorated shortbread cake over the head of a new bride on the threshold of her new home! Although shortbread fingers and petticoat tails are the most common baking shapes, Walker's Shortbread, one of the most easily recognizable brands, sometimes creates special edition shapes, such as camels!

Time to bake those bannocks, even a basketful! And while you're at it, time to make a fortune-telling bannock! Shrove Tuesday (also referred to as Pancake Day or Pancake Tuesday) is known in Scotland as Bannock Night, a moveable feast day preceding Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), and often celebrated by consuming pancakes, griddle cakes, and bannocks! Shrove Tuesday was the last opportunity to use up eggs and fats before embarking on the Lenten fast, The Scots version of Lenten bannocks is made with oatmeal, eggs, milk or beef stock and cooked on a girdle (griddle). Milk-brose or gruel was often served to eat with the bannocks, leading to other names for this day such as Brose Day (Brosie), or Milk-Gruel Night! For fortune-telling fun, family members would participate in making a special "sooty bannock". Ritual batter pouring involved one person to pour the batter onto the griddle, another to turn the pancake, and a third to remove it when it was cooked, handing them round the assembled company. When the bowl of batter was almost empty, a small quantity of soot was aded to the mixture to make a large dark bannock, also known as the "dreaming bannock." The sooty bannock would fill the whole girdle and symbolic charms could be dropped into it: a button (bachelor); a ring (married); thimble (old maid); farthing (widow); scrap of material (tailor); straw (farmer). Once turned and cooked through, the sooty bannock was cut into bits and put into the baker's apron for everyone to draw a piece to learn their fortune! At the end of the evening, a piece of the sooty bannock could be put inside a sock and placed under pillows where the dreamer hoped to dream of their future partner! This tasty jig contains plenty of turns and circles reminiscent of batter mixing and sizziling girdles! 🥞 🥞 🥞

Legend has it that when Samuel Johnson boasted to his friend James Boswell that in England “we wouldn’t think of eating oats. We only feed them to horses,” Boswell retorted “Well, maybe that’s why in England you have better horses, and in Scotland we have better men.”

Regardless of shape, Scottish shortbread starts with just four ingredients: butter, salt, sugar, and flour. Intrepid bakers and top chefs have added modern touches such as browning the butter; toasting the sugar; adding cornstarch; and coating the baking pan with a generous layer of Demerara sugar to give the shortbread a nice granular topping. But for traditional and regional shortbread variations, try a recipe for Pitcaithly Bannock (made with almonds, caraway seeds, and crystallized orange) or Yetholm Bannock (which includes chopped ginger)! Yum!

What could be better in wintry weather than soup warming soup and a dance to go with it! This traditional farmhouse soup, gained art-world notoriety during the 1960's Pop Art movement though American artist Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup can series! Scotch Broth is featured in his second portfolio of soup can prints from 1968-69. In a bit of art world thievery, in 2016, some of the soup can art prints were stolen from the Springfield Art Museum in Missouri where the original works reside. According to art insurers, 'Tomato Soup' is the most expensive and sought-after by collectors with 'Chicken Noodle' running a close second. The stolen prints included the prints of the Beef, Vegetable, Tomato, Onion, Green Pea, Chicken noodle and Black Bean soup cans. Fortunately, Scotch Broth was not in this set! Lamb, barley, and root vegetables .... ‘Mmm, mmm, good!’ Recipe included! 🍲

A "Clootie/Cloutie Dumpling" is the Scottish version of a Christmas pudding. Firstly and most importantly, it is a pudding boiled in a "clout," a cloth. The tradition comes from the days before people had ovens and so cooked much of their food by boiling ingredients in huge pots. Although flour, suet, dried fruit and spices always feature, regional variations, like the addition of treacle, feature in Fife and other areas. And like all traditional puddings, clootie dumplings come with their own set of traditions. When it's being made everyone in the household should give it a good skelp – or smack – to make sure it has a nice round shape! Serve with custard. 🎄 🥮