Sometimes the cuisine you are pursuing is not found at a restaurant. In search of Scottish food, we found ourselves in the midst of the Highland Games at the Orange County Fairgrounds where the men in skirts outnumbered the women in pants. We knew we had to find Haggis - the dish that equated "Scottish Food" for whomever we asked. We stopped at the MacLaine clan's booth where Rick's co-worker and friend was standing clad in full clan regalia with framed pictures of Moy Castle on Isle of Mull. He already knew why we were there so he gave us a briefing on the basics of Haggis and other Scottish pies and told us where to find the said food.
Since it was still early, we decided to walk around the fair, to see the pipe bands, sheep herding dogs, caber tossing contests, young dancers and the many vendors that sold kilts, swords, sgian dubhs, spiral hair ornaments and sporrans.
When we decided we were hungry enough to purchase a variety of food to share and sample, we made our way back to the haggis stand. Before we had a chance to put in our order with the elderly lady with the attractive Scottish accent, the big burly guy in the back shouted "no more haggis!". While the young girl next to us walked away with the last serving of haggis, we sadly placed our order of meat & mushroom pie and Scottish pie before those ran out as well. These are dishes that the moment you sink your teeth into the outer crust, they take you back to the days when you were little and your mum served you the best comfort foods fresh out of her oven. The meaty fillings of both pies made us close our eyes and savor the simple yet fulfilling taste, exchanging the paper plates back and forth between us.
Like every good food there was not enough so we found another booth where they sold Bangers! Bangers are Scottish kind of sausages typically served with mashed potatoes. They were mild tasting unlike the spicy sausages of Italians or Germans and we got ours with fries. Honestly not much different than regular sausages you would find anywhere else but nonetheless Scottish.
Moral of this week's culinary adventure is "get your Haggis while you can!"
See you at our next pan-cuisinal adventure in a week.
Ith gu leòir!
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