Food glorious food

It's a cut above the weekly supermarket run. Shopping for food in Scotland is all about seeking out the best delicatessens, bakers, butchers, cheesemongers and ice cream shops. Kate Patrick takes stock (lots of it)

A British national newspaper once made the mistake of comparing Valvona & Crolla, Edinburgh's Italian delicatessen and a destination in its own right, with ‘the best of anything in London'. It missed the point entirely: V&C bears favourable comparison with the best of anything in Italy, which is its true inspiration and source of much of its tempting produce.

Enterprising food shops all over Scotland not only take their inspiration from other countries and cultures, but also just do their own, utterly Scottish thing with considerable panache.

Take, for example, the new farm shops opening in response to demand for fresh, organic and traceable produce that does not have hundreds of ‘food miles' to its name before it reaches our tables. Dobbies Garden World, near the Edinburgh bypass, opened a food hall earlier this year, selling produce from local suppliers in East Lothian and the Scottish Borders.

And in an even more dedicated fashion, the gift shop at Drumlanrig Castle, the Duke of Buccleuch's estate in Dumfriesshire, is among a number of outlets selling Buccleuch's own-brand meat, chutneys, pickles, mustards, preserves, biscuits, cheese and beers, sourced either from the estate's farms or from small producers across Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders.

With rigourous control from field to customer, you find that the food is fresh, high-quality, natural and additive-free – and certainly brings a sense of the Scottish countryside to the table. But if the meats, c...

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• By : Kate Patrick
• In : Contemporary Scotland
• Issue : 17
• Page : 52
• Words : 1,353