Mealy Tatties

The farm cart leaves for the weekly trip to the town filled with a load of boiled-in-their-skins potatoes. ‘Mealy tatties’, cries the farm hand as he leads his horse through the streets. People come out of their houses with basins to collect a supply. The mealy tattie cart trundles through the Scottish streets for the best part of the nineteenth century. The potatoes, cooked on the farm, are a specially dry, mealy or floury, variety. They are the preferred Scottish choice, rather than wet, waxy varieties.