ye'll have had yer tea (part 2)

Having dealt yesterday with what's bad about Scottish cuisine, let's list some of the good stuff.

High tea is a particular type of meal, usually had on a Sunday. A hot dish is followed by bread and butter, and traditionally you have to eat two slices of this to fill you up before you are allowed to proceed to the feast of cakes, scones and shortbread that cover the entire table.

Arbroath Smokies are a type of kipper, Clootie Dumpling is a steamed pudding, and Black Bun is a rich, heavy cake covered in a kind of pastry and served to First Footers on Hogmanay (New Year's Eve). The first person through the door should be dark-haired and carrying a piece of coal. Steak and kidney pie is served for lunch on New Year's Day. For me, only the pie is of interest, but I mention the others for your edification.

In the home baking line there's Kirriemuir Slices (sometimes known as Millionaire Shortbread, and similar to Twix bars), pancakes (a thick mixture dopped onto a very hot griddle) and oatcakes - the small, crisp ones for eating with cheese like crackers, not like Staffordshire oatcakes which are rolled up with bacon and cheese.

For starters, you might have Scotch Broth or Cock-a-leekie soup, followed by the main course: salmon, Aberdeen Angus, venison (which I once ate in a restaurant served with a chocolate sauce, but I don't expect that was a traditional Scottish recipe), or the casserole called Stovies - layers of thinly-sliced potato, onions and lamb. There's a rare type of lamb from Orkney where the sheep are kept away the grass, which is reserved for cattle, and have to eat seaweed instead on the shore, so the meat has a faint salty taste.

For dessert, there's delicious soft fruit from central Scotland. A particularly tasty pudding is Cranachan, a mixture of toasted oats, honey, raspberries and whisky. Crowdie is a type of cottage cheese from the north of Scotland.

There's lots more, but these are the main ones I can remember off the top of my head. Now I've made myself hungry!