Iain Mackenzine here. I’m checking the archives of Green Man Review as we move them to their new home. And I found many a reference to things culinary in them so I’d share a few of those here. Look tomorrow for an essay on what varies folk love to eat for breakfast in the colder, blustery weather when most folks crave heartier fare after first waking.
Right now, I offer you up a piece originally published in The Sleeping Hedgehog in which Charles Stross, author of The Halting State and many other fine works, discusses the Scottish fry, a variant on the better known English Fry.
He said that I don’t eat breakfast. When I do, it’s an occasional treat and I go for a full Scottish cooked breakfast — heart attack city.
He went on to note Yeah, there was a place around here that used to serve cheap but good huevos rancheros at weekends and we used to go there about once a month, but it changed menus (to something incompatible with my vegan partner). And regarding ‘The Scottish breakfast…
Start with rashers of bacon. Add a fat slice of blood pudding, a chunk of Lorne sausage (square slices of sausage meat — google on it), fried mushrooms, fried tomatoes, fried eggs, deep-fried slices of bread (not toast, but bread fried in oil), and maybe baked beans. For added cholesterol add some ordinary bangers (British sausages — almost 30% real meat!) and, if you’re into foreign imports, hashbrowns or fries. There should be enough grease left on your plate after you’ve eaten it to fry your lunch in.
This meal is usually eaten some time between ten a.m. and two p.m. on a Sunday, after lying in to get rid of the hangover. It is one of the reasons why Scotland has the world’s highest level of heart disease.
