Stews

Though stews date back to medieval English recipes, it is surprising to find Meg Dods (1826) saying that the idea of a ‘soup-and-stew’ or ‘mouthful soup’, as she describes it, is a novel idea in Scotland. One can only assume that, because the broth pot dominated to such an extent, the idea of a thickened stew with bite-size pieces of meat was not common. Much more practical to keep the meat in one piece, separated from the liquid, and eaten cold as required.

This is not to say that the stew idea has no Scottish pedigree. Those antiquarian recipes which resemble stews are more of the lightly stewed collops-in-the-pan type, using a tender cut and making something of the concentrated pan juices by adding other flavourings and reducing to intensify the flavours – ideal tavern fare in the eighteenth century when they could be cooked to order.