Taste Ye Back

With some of Scotland's best loved celebrities contributing recipes, we dive into Sue's new book.

The idea behind my latest book Taste Ye Back started when I was researching some of my earlier Scottish cookery books and speaking to family, friends and Scottish food producers about the food they ate as children. I began to wonder if, by speaking to many Scots of all ages and from all over Scotland, their tales would make an interesting book. When I decided to tie-in with the charity CHAS, it also made sense to interview celebrity Scots about their childhood food memories as these would have broad appeal. The book has indeed become a quasi social history.

A look at my mother's old recipe books started me thinking about my own childhood food. With just one glance at these smudgy pages I was transported back to my childhood and recalled not only the taste and sight of the recipe (usually sweet!) but also the provenance. And that was the wonderful thing about asking people about their food memories: at interviews, I encountered sadness, deep nostalgia, even tears on recalling something a mum or granny used to make. I have also witnessed laughter, disdain and passion. But most of all I have seen an enthusiasm about the food my interviewees ate as children. On the whole, it was home-cooked, fresh and seasonal and so how could that not evoke a delicious nostalgia. I ended up wondering, however, why most Scots were so obsessed with such idiosyncratic things as dipping raw rhubarb in white sugar and achieving the perfect skin on a cloutie dumpling!

My hope is that once my readers...

To read the rest of this article you can do any of the following.

• By : Rob Allanson
• In : Food
• Issue : 47
• Page : 46
• Words : 2,122