Stovies

stovies (known in full as stoved tatties), a Scottish dish of potatoes, onions, etc., often with mutton, stewed with very little added liquid.

Stovies make a delicious dish, but their main interest lies perhaps in the etymology of the term. Given the large number of French culinary terms which have been in use in Scotland for centuries, it is tempting to derive stovie from étuvé, a French word with just about the same meaning, i.e. something cooked in a closed recipient with very little liquid; cf. braise. This was the view taken by Marian McNeill (1929). However, Catherine Brown (1985) prefers the theory that the use of the English word ‘stove’ as a verb meaning to stew has a history quite independent of the French term. She points out that Gervase Markham (1631) referred to ‘letting a bird stove and sweate till evening’, and suggests that the particular value of the verb to stove lay in its having a meaning between sweating and stewing ‘since often, as in stovies, very little water is used’. She also remarks, as is generally accepted, that this use of the word ‘stove’ is particularly Scottish; but adds that it is not exclusively Scottish, since it has also remained in use in the north of England.