Local Hero

This month sees the 7th annual Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight, relaunched under the tartan auspices of Homecoming and surfing the ethical and financial zeitgeist of eating locally and sustainably from family-run businesses.

Aiming to engage local consumers, producers and eateries in equal measure, one glance at the organisation’s website is enough to get you to lay down your Whopper Meal and reach for the tablet. Here, Scottish scran translates as images of hedonistic, loch-side piles of oysters and lobsters (next to what looks suspiciously like a we’ll-overlook-it-this-time large glass of Chablis), attractive young ladies holding trays of fresh ravioli almost certainly stuffed with wild mountain hare, organic blue cheese and free-range watercress (I’m projecting here) and jovial ruddy-faced men downing dram after dram of Talisker in an heroic, utterly selfless bid to reduce food miles. If this is what it takes to support the native food chain, call me Bear Grylls (don’t) and count me in.

So, in a completely scientific, balanced piece of research, I decided to see if I could survive one day on a purely Caledonian diet.

Breakfast

Wake up realising that trying a niche diet whilst working a 16 hour days at the World’s largest arts festival is the worst idea ever. My culinary highlight of the past fortnight has been blowing on searingly hot stringy strips of greasy crepe whilst simultaneously attempting to fling them into my mouth and make like Usain Bolt running from Udderbelly to The Stand in 40.12 seconds. Ask anyone who works in Edinburgh during August what their staple diet consists of and they’ll just mouth the word ‘falafelfalafelfalafel’ at you, whilst blankly wiping garlic sauce from their hair. Whither my relaxing sun-drenched picnic of Black Isle Ale and Orkney crab sandwiches?!

Also have to grudgingly acknowledge that I’ve fallen at the first hurdle and that, although Scottish Blend sounds like it is geographically spot-on, those leaves didn’t come from a plantation outside Drumnadrochit. Still, its saltire-inspired packaging sets me on my way - Patriotism 1 Food Miles 0.

Sink to my knees in relief at the sight of a Stoats Porridge Oats Bar in my local health food shop- nicer, quicker and cheaper than Ready Brek- and I thematically eschew goji berry and flax seeds in exchange for a classic Scottish combo of raspberry and honey. Game on!

Lunch

Decide to take advantage of those temporary, upscale food huts that spring up across the city in August, offering spiced bacon butties and authentic Nuremberg-style hot dogs, as if Waitrose were running a funfair. The Well Hung & Tender van has a queue round the block for its Aberdeen Angus steak rolls and burgers, topped off with massive wodges of caramelised onions. This is some seriously tasty cow and I manage to choke down both the hellish pun of a name and the fact that their farm is in Berwick-Upon-Tweed which, at time of writing, is outwith Scottish governance. Still, the cows themselves have a stronger Celtic lineage than Sean Connery so I’m chalking this up as another win.

Dinner

Eat in or eat out is the big choice. Edinburgh certainly has no shortage of restaurants that subscribe to the SFADF’s fortnight’s ethos of discovering and championing goodies from Scotland’s larder. You can roll down to Leith and blow £30+ on turbot from Scrabster or lamb from Dornoch at Tom Kitchin’s place, or drop into an outlet of Yummy Mummy haven Urban Angel to try their pioneering 50 mile menu, where everything will have travelled a maximum of 50 miles (like a lazy Proclaimer) to fall down on your plate. But it’s clear that the people behind the fortnight movement want it to move beyond preaching to the choir and involve everyone, so I decide to prowl the supermarket aisles and fend for myself. SFADF patron Lady Claire MacDonald has donated some pretty tasty recipes to the cause like Arbroath Smokie Pate, but as this involves such frivolities as a food processor and ramekins, this will have to wait- we’re into serious one-frying-pan meal territory. A cursory browse at a fairly generic ‘big shop’ plus a late-night deli threw up a surprising range of goodies from our doorstep and I happily chowed down on some veggie haggis (celebrating its 25th birthday this year, which absolutely makes it traditional), crispy discs of waxy Ayrshire potatoes and a free range egg of ostrich proportions. I’m not necessarily condoning supermarket dependency as I know this ultimately defeats the object of trying to spend within your own community, but it’s good to know that the best Scottish ingredients that were once exported across the sea before we'd even got a sniff- I’m looking at you, Mr Langoustine, lost to the bon vivants of France- are finally finding a mainstream following on their home turf. Grilled with some Really Garlicky butter (courtesy of the Allingham family farm at the foot of Cawdor Hills, the UK's only growers of extra-pungent, in no way first date-friendly Porcelein garlic), these nippy sweeties were cheap, easy to find and tastier than a cottony, bland tiger prawn any day.

Rounding off my day with perhaps Scotland’s most enduring contribution to the culinary world- a 40% proof nightcap that helps you take the sleepy train to oblivion- I’m pretty sure a fortnight would be no trouble at all.