Scotland: Cultural Differences Part 2 (Food)

Back to one of my favorite Scottish topics again, aside from language and accents - the food. I wish I could say that I loved to talk about the food because it's great here. But, it is the U.K., and unfortunately, there is a grain of truth behind why the U.K. is stereotyped as having awful food. Having been here nearly two years and eaten plenty of U.K. food, it's not that it's bad...it's just that choice may be limited (pub food, fish & chips, or Indian) and what you get may be fairly bland (aside, perhaps, from the Indian food).  In this blog I'll talk briefly about three aspects of Scotland (and the wider U.K.'s) unique food culture: ice cream, juice, and lunch.

Dueling ice cream trucks at Linlithgow Palace

First, ice cream. There are two things that Brits call ice cream - if you look closely in the picture above, taken at Linlithgow Palace on a special day of Jousting, you'll see two ice cream trucks. The one on the left is serving what I call "fake ice cream" - it's the consistency of soft serve ice cream, only more like what would happen if you mixed whipped cream and ice cream together. It comes (generally) in a cone, decorated with a Cadbury Flake, which is a stick of chocolate that falls apart when you look at it cross-eyed.  The one on the right was serving regular ice cream, but generally just vanilla. Sometimes chocolate or strawberry, or occasionally more exotic flavors would be served from an ice cream truck. But even at the grocery store, a preference (or bias toward?) vanilla is evident as it is much cheaper to buy vanilla ice cream - even chocolate and strawberry command a premium price compared to (the more British?) vanilla.  It is possible to get very good ice cream in multiple flavors, but you have to go to the good ice cream shops - our favorites are Jannetta's Gelateria in St. Andrews, Visocchi's Gelateria in Broughty Ferry, and Stewart Tower Dairy, halfway between Dundee and Dunkeld.

Audrey in the window of Jannetta's GelateriaJuice

Juice is an interesting aside - in the U.S., it seems like apple juice and grape juice are king for kids. Maybe orange juice, and of course what I think of as fake juice - things like Hi-C or some "fruit punch" amalgamation. Here in Scotland, however, kids have three juice choices. Apple juice is often available. But mainly what kids drink is blackcurrent juice (often as a syrup which is watered down) and orange squash, which is a bit like orange juice but not as tasty (more like Sunny Delight than real orange juice). It also may be watered down like the blackcurrent. When our kids first got here, they found blackcurrent a strange flavor. But now they've totally acclimated and will find it strange that no one in the U.S. drinks it.

From a bakery in York: note egg & prawn sandwich

Finally, lunch. Unlike dinner (or "tea" in Scotland), which seems to have been influenced by world cuisine a bit more, lunch remains quite British.  From a sandwich you pick up in the supermarket to one you order at a sit-down restaurant or grab from a takeaway sandwich shop, you'll likely be picking from a selection of sandwiches that doesn't bear much resemblence to a U.S. selection.

For this blog, I wanted to take a picture of the lunch case at one of my favorite takeaway sandwich shops in Dundee. It's official name is "Super Snacks" but my boss just calls it "The Yummy Roll Shop."  It is always packed at lunchtime, with a line (queue) out the door.  They make two homemade soups per day, and cook burgers and paninis as well as make snadwiches to order with many of the fillings I'll describe below. They also sell crisps, sweeties (candy bars), drinks of various kinds, and homemade cakes (also described below). The food is good, it's cheap (a large soup for < 2 pounds, a sandwich for < 3 pounds) and it's (relatively) fast. But back to the picture...because it's so crowded, and it's all locals, I though I'd stick out like a sore thumb by taking a picture of the glass case where they keep the sandwich fillings. Dundee being the small town it is, with my luck someone I know would be in line at Super Snacks and make fun of me for taking a picture.Or I'd ask the staff if I could take a picture and then be faced with their incredulous stares (Why would ye want to tak a picture of sandwich fillings and salad, lassie?)

So, no picture. But it is one of the first places I ate in Dundee, and I remember going there with my boss and asking her to tell me what the sandwich fillings were so I'd have some clue of what to order.

Here's a primer, if you ever find yourself face to face with a Scottish (British) lunch counter:

• Stuff an American might recognize, called differently:  
• Egg mayonaise, and tuna mayonaise. As you might imagine, egg salad and tuna salad. They will ask you if you want butter on your roll. I am not sure why you would, on an egg salad sandwich, but I usually say "yes" just to seem normal. They also ask if you want "salad" - this can mean anything from a lettuce leaf to coleslaw. you just tell them which kinds of "salad" you want - lettuce? tomato? Sort of like decking out your sandwich at Subway. 
• Stuff an American probably won't recognize:    
• Coronation chicken and "Mexican" chicken. Coronation chicken is sort of like a curried chicken salad. Pretty good. I'll admit that having lived in the Southwest U.S., I am not brave enough to try what they claim is "Mexican" chicken for fear of disapppointment. 
• A cheddar ploughman's sandwich. Basically, a cheese sandwich with onion relish. Pretty good. I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me. 
• Tuna and sweetcorn, Prawn mayonaise, and Cheese salad. Okay, yuck. Why would you want to put corn in a perfectly good tuna sandwich? And prawns - okay, shrimp in a pasta or shrimp scampi, great - but with mayonaise as a sandwich filling? And as for Cheese salad...it looks like shredded cheddar cheese held together with mayonaise. Maybe a little onion. Enough said. 
• A few other options: In addition to Paninis (grilled sandwiches on baguettes) you can also get Toasties here, which are what they sound like - a sandwich that gets popped in the toaster. Ham and cheese toasties are the classic type, but there is one restaurant that serves a Haggis Toastie (I think it's the Tartan Cafe if you're ever in Dundee and want to sample it) which is, as you might imagine, haggis and cheese, toasted. What could be more Scottish? 

•  Finally, the cakes: sort of misnomer as most of them don't have any "cake" in them - they are more like "bars"and are sometimes called "tray bakes" - typical kinds include:
• Millionaire shortbread - shortbread topped with caramel and chocolate. Really good. The best ones can be quite rich so a little piece goes a long way
• Caramel Slice - like millionare shortbread without the chocolate :-(
• Mars Crispie Cake - It looks like a chocolate rice krispie treat, but it's a bit more caramel-y. More of a "kid" thing.
• Malteaser Slice - Crushed digestive biscuits covered in chocolate with malted milk balls sprinked on.
• Chocolate Tiffin - a mixture of Rich Tea biscuits, chocolate, and raisins held together with butter and golden syrup. More of a "kid" thing, but yum. 
• Rocky Road - similar to Malteaser Slice only with nuts and marshmallows instead of malted milk balls.
• Brownie (or occasionally, Blondie) - I am always tempted by these, but they are just not as good (in general) as brownies in the U.S. 
• And of course all things Victoria Sponge - a white/vanilla cake with a layer of cream and rasberry or strawberry jam in the center. I have seen this as a full cake and as a cupcake...it's kind of a classic flavor combination that you might expect alongside the caramel slice and millionare shortbread.

So a few words to the wise in Scotland: Order the real vanilla ice cream, not the fake ice cream (better yet, visit one of the gelaterias or dairies near Dundee!) Don't be put off by blackcurrent juice; it's not so bad once you get used to it. And watch what you order at the lunch counter, making sure to save some room for a "cake" (tray bake) especially if it's homemade!

Sheep Shearing in Glenogil, Scotland

I will admit, since coming to Scotland I have become a bit sheep obsessed.  They are seemingly everywhere as you travel around by car and by train, munching grass and giving much of the country a buccolic, pastoral atmosphere.  They look so cute, especially in the early-lamb days of April and May. 

Grazing sheep in Glenogil

Being a digital researcher, however,  I never had a reason to interact with sheep aside from viewing them as we zipped by in the car. But, being an (sheep-obsessed) anthropologist, I wanted to change that. Our friend Steven is the son of a farmer, and he introduced me to Scott, whose working farm is just up the road from Dundee. Scott mentioned that he was about to gather some sheep in for shearing in the 10 days after we met him, so I, jumping at a chance to interact with sheep up close, asked if I could come along. To my surprise, he agreed. And so, ten days later, after forty-five minutes driving into the pastoral wilderness with my husband and three-year-old (thank you, very patient husband and three-year-old, for humoring me), we were there, at Scott's farm in Glenogil, eye to eye with some uncertain sheep, and some confused workers who were too polite to ask us why we were standing around like tourists, watching them work.

Fortunately Scott arrived at that moment and shepherded us through the sheep enclosure and into the shed that was the sheep shearing staging ground. They had gathered approximately 1100 male blackface sheep from the hill the day before, starting "early" and finishing about 6 pm.  Scott told us that they gather these sheep four times a year, and that they keep around1400 female sheep closer to home, although some of the "home" sheep go up the hill to join the "hill" sheep in summer. Since the sheep to be sheared had been gathered into the barn, the first step was getting them from the barn to the shearing shed.

Scott and his father encourage the sheep in the right direction

The shearing team had arrived around 8 that morning - a team of three contractors who travel around to shear as needed.  Although they were all experienced shearers, the lead guy competed in competitive sheep shearing as well - he was quite amazing to watch. Once the sheepwere in the shed, they were pushed into a series of small pens leading up to the shearing platform.

Waiting for shearing

The chute

To be sheared, sheep were encouraged up a narrow chute.  There were three doors in the side of the chute, one for each shearer.  When the shearer was ready, he opened the appropriate door, hauled out a sheep, positioned it and held it in place with one hand, while grabbing the electric razor and beginning to shear with the other hand.

Two shearers at work on the shearing platform

 Scottish friends asked if I had a go at shearing, and the answer was, after watching the shearers wrestle the sheep, I had no desire to try my completly amateur hand at what is clearly a trained professional job. I envisioned wool carnage, if not a sliced sheep leg (or my own hand). I am just not that strong, or coordinated. Have a look at this: the lead shearer, wrestling a sheep through the shearing dance, start to finish, in 1 minute:

 

After the shearer fnished a sheep, he let it go, and it jumped off the plaform and scampered away.  As in the video, someone gathered up the fleece and moved it out of the way, so the shearer could keep his rhythm going.  This fleece-gathering was about the only job Paul and I were qualified to do here.  It involved spreading out the fleece, rolling it up, and putting it in the bag of fleeces.

Finished sheep: note bag of fleece in the foreground

Rolling the fleece

Paul with his rolled fleece

A nearly full bag of fleece: Three-year-old for scale

Mostly the system worked without a hitch.  Sheep were encouraged along, grabbed by shearers from the chute, sheared, then released, where they joined a newly shorn flock in the next holding area. Sometimes the sheep became scared enough to make a break for it, though, like this one, which jumped out of a holding pen and was chased down by the farm's sheep-herding dogs, Scott the farmer, and several other workers. 

Escapee being returned

Although the shearing process wasn't painful for the sheep, it did make them uneasy, mainly because it was out of the ordinary.  The gathered sheep were basically wild, interacting with humans only a few times a year.

After being sheared, the sheep weren't done yet.  When we visited Glenogil and Scott's farm, we were surprised to find out that these male sheep were not kept for wool or for meat, but rather as part of a clever integrated pest management scheme.  In Glenogil, the UK government values grouse, because people pay money to come shoot them.  But if the grouse get ticks, they become anemic and potentially die. And no grouse, no shooting income.  So Scott treats his hill sheep with insecticide.  The spray doesn't hurt the sheep, and when ticks attach to them (preferring big sheep to small grouse), they die. And the grouse are protected, to die in a more economically valuable way.  Scott's sheep protected 8,000 grouse last year, although this year due to a cooler climate, there were fewer grouse.

More waiting for the sheep

After shearing, the sheep were again gathered into a pen, to await the second part of their treatment.  The shearing keeps them healthy - if their fleece is just allowed to grow, they become susceptible to becoming breeding grounds for fly larvae.  So sheared sheep are more hygenic.  After waiting, the sheep were encouraged into another chute, this time for tagging, clipping, marking, and insecticide treatment.

Tagging the ears

Each ear got a tag, one of which had a radio frequency ID (RFID) chip in it.  So sheep were tagged, then scanned, so workers knew who was who. If the horns were too long they were clipped at this point too, although this was not too common, maybe one out of 20-30 sheep got its horns clipped.

Clipping horns that have gotten too long

Marking

The last steps for the sheep were marking (with orange Sheep Marking Fluid) and treatment with the insecticide.  It left a green trail down their back, but quickly soaked in to be invisible.

Insecticide treatment

Finaly, the sheep were relased into a final holding pen, which was where we came in.

Sheep in holding pen

As we drove out to Glenogil, I didn't know quite what to expect, other than I was going to see sheep.  But I walked away very impressed with what a massive undertaking running a farm is, and we barely scratched the surface.  We saw one day of one particular task - shearing and treating male blackface sheep - that was part of much larger web of interactions - grouse as a more valuable commodity than sheep,and  sheep as hillside pest control. 

Scott's farm is diverse - it's not just these male sheep.  There are female sheep, and cows (who will feature in another blog, more about local food) and crops like wheat and barley as well. It's a full-time, year-round job to keep the farm running, and in fact in addition to monitoring the shearing, Scott was also off (on one of his quads) periodically during the day we were there to monitor calving in another part of the farm.  Despite this, he patiently answered our many questions about the farm, and even let Claire check out his ride.

Checking out the quad with farmer Scott

I definitely learned a lot about the agricultural reality of Scotland by visiting Scott's farm in Glenogil - and I hope you now have as well.  

So, support your local farmer! 

Buy local food when you can! 

And never, unless you have received specialized training, attempt to shear a sheep!

Leave it to the professionals.

Sheep herding professionals at rest: Bye for now

 

Three Tips for Driving in the U.K., by Paul

Speed limit sign

Disclaimer: This blog should not be used as a subsitute for actual driving instruction in the U.K. Just in case you were considering it.

So we're embarking quite soon on our adventures with American visitors during this, our last Scottish summer.  Most are going to rent (ahem, hire) cars for some portion of their visit, so here are a few tips from Paul, the licensed U.K. driver.

Tip 1: The centre line should always be to your right. It will feel strange because you will be driving from the wrong side of the car, but if the centre line is to your right, you're OK.  Being aware of the centre line also may minimise youe chances of sideswiping parked cars on the side of the road.

One side note about those parked cars...if you're coming up a road that is, in theory, two lanes, but there are parked cars reducing it to one lane, look at which direction most the cars are facing.  If they're going the same direction as you, you should yield to oncoming traffic.  

Tip 2: Roundabouts are everywhere, so it's good to know how to drive through one. Stay to the left to go around the roundabout, even if you are turning right. The link below to the UK drivers Learners Guide offers quite a helpful quick guide to which lane you should be in coming into a roundabout, depending upong where you want to exit. The section is called, in a very British fashion, "Lane Discipline." Basiclally, look at the road to get guidance on which lane to be in (i.e., if you're going to Dundee, one of the lanes might actually have Dundee, or some abbreviation thereof, painted in it), and follow the rule of thumb that if you're turning right (taking the the third exit off the roundabout) you should stay in the inside lane, and signal your intentions (paradoxically, signalling left as your approach your turnoff).

Roundabouts can be complicated so pay attention to these signs on approach to see which exit to take.

Tip 3: Speed Limits. Speed limits are actually fairly fast, especially as you start driving and realize how narrow some of  the 60 mph roads are. You can go 70 mph on the motorway, and 60 mph on most other roads. When you approach a village/town that has streetlamps, however, you need to slow to 30 mph (the circular sign at the top of the blog, with the red border, is a speed limit sign).

   
The national speed limit is 60 mph, and in addition to perhaps seeing a red-bordered sign saying 60 to indicate that, you might also see this, which indicates the beginning of the national speed limit.

National Speed Limit sign (60 mph)

It's uncertain why rule-makers in the U.K. chose such a cryptic sign, but cheer up, you could be driving in Wales instead and not even be able to tell where you're going, thanks to Welsh spelling:

Welsh road sign

So happy driving in Scotland.  Despite some complicated roundabout signs, the general direction signs are quite vague, if somewhat reassuring...you might see a sign that gives the names of the two nearest towns, and then a helpful arrow pointing straight ahead, accompanied by the words, "To the North."  So, keep going North, and if you start seeing signs for Inverness and the A9, turn around and head back to Perth, where there is one roundabout to rule them all; you can go to any city in Scotland from it, including our lovely city of Dundee!