Ayrshire bacon

Sue Lawrence provides some more delicious Scottish recipes.

Breakfast in Scotland is worth getting up for, since it is something we do exceedingly well. From porridge and Finnan haddock to smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, this is a meal that showcases some of Scotland's finest ingredients. And although there are endless recipes for black pudding and sausages, kippers and porridge, there is only one recipe for Scotland's bacon: the Ayrshire cure.

And so when I went to Carluke to see Andrew and brother John Ramsay's shop, I was keen to find out why. Like the Wiltshire cure, Ayrshire bacon is brine-cured. But whereas the Wiltshire bacon sides are cured with the rind on and bones in, the Ayrshire sides have the rind off and bones taken out.

The origin of bacon in Ayrshire was as a by-product of the important dairy farming in the area (Ayrshire milk is still some of the country's best). And although this specifically Scottish cure began centuries ago, Ramsay of Carluke is the only butcher producing it traditionally by hand from start to finish, on such a large scale.

But bacon starts with the pig. And it was the Ramsay brothers' great-great-grandfather who, in 1857 began curing bacon from his home on a farm in Carluke, having spent his previous working life tending the Duke of Hamilton's white cattle in Hamilton. And although the Ramsay's free-range pigs (Large White-Landrace cross) are reared in Perthshire, the farmer John Neil delivers the pigs a couple of times a week to the Ramsay's own small abattoir beside the shop in Carluke.

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• By : Sue Lawrence
• In : Outdoor Scotland
• Issue : 41
• Page : 50
• Words : 622