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IN the Lowlands it was,
in early times, the custom of the nobles to entertain the bulk of their
dependants at a common table.
"Great families," says
Lesley, "they feed, and that perpetually, partly to defend thorn- selves
from their neighbours, with whom they have daily feud, partly to defend
the realm"; for the power and influence of the noble depended largely on
the number and lustihood of his followers. Hospitality to strangers,
too, was regarded as a sacred duty; so much so that when taverns began
to be substituted, special enactments were passed compelling travellers
to lodge at least their servants in them. Hunting being a chief pastime
in years of peuce, there was never a lack of venison and wild game.
Herds of wild cattle ranged the Caledonian forest, but such was "the
gluttony of man" (the flesh of the animal, though "all grissillie,"
being of "a trim taste ") that by the sixteenth century their numbers
had been greatly diminished. Another kind of "ky nocht tame," with flesh
of a "marvellous sweetness, of a wonderful tenderness, and excellent
delicateness of taste" (the breed was doubtless the long-horned
Highland) ranged the hill-country of Argyll and Ross almost at will.
Besides other winged game, layerocks were a common article of diet,
being in some districts so plentiful that in the sixteenth century
twelve were sold for a French son. Rabbits, or "cunyes" were such
a favourite dish that in the thirteenth century a warren and its
warrener were attached to every burgh. Mutton was in more common use
than beef, but cows were kept in great numbers for dairy purposes, and
the monks were great poultry masters and encouragers of husbandry. In
some parts there were swine that the forests glutted with mast and
acorns, but otherwise they seem to have led a somewhat unhappy and
persecuted life. Sir Walter states that "pork or swine flesh in any
shape was till of late years much abominated by the Scots, nor is it yet
a favourite dish amongst them." No doubt the latter clause of this
pronouncement was true when Sir Walter wrote, but the former requires
modification. The antipathy of the ancient Highland Scot to pork was as
marked as the Jews, but among Lowlanders the distaste was neither so
general nor so decided. From time immemorial pigs have been kept in the
Lowlands. they seem to have been at least occasionally kept by the
monks; a charter of David I. to the Abbey of Holyrood contains the
following provision: "And the swine, the property of the aforesaid
church, I grant in all my woods to be quit of pannage." This however,
before luxury had affected the ancient monastic habit. For many
generations pork was iii all probability the food chiefly of the serfs
and the poorer classes generally. This may even be inferred from the
severity of the enactments against their depredations. Thus, while other
animals might only be impounded in such eases, swine found eating the
corn or rooting in the tilth might be slain out of hand. But although at
intervals from 1450 the town council of Edinburgh continued to order all
swine found in the open streets, closes, or vennels of the city to be
slaughtered or escheated, these industrious wayfarers went on
contributing their quota to the picturesqueness and vivacity of street
life in the capital till as late as the close of the eighteenth century.
The swine—magisterially described as "ane unseemlie kind of beast"—does
not seem to have invaded the city of Aberdeen until the middle of the
seventeenth century. But it also exhibited there the same inveterate
love of city life. i)i'. Somerville states that in his time, "though
pork was sometimes presented at table, few ate of it when fresh, and
even when cured it was not generally acceptable." Nevertheless it had
begun to be exported in 1703, and an Act of 1705 for encouraging
exportation contains directions for curing and packing. No doubt the
introduction of the potato has greatly aided the extension of
pig-keeping ; and the change in the fashion of breakfasting introduced
by the use of tea and coffee has given pork a permanent and prominent
place at Scots as well as English tables.
Fish, both freshwater and salt, were largely
used as food in Scotland from the thirteenth century onwards. The monks
especially were devoted to the fostering and development of fisheries;
and it was chiefly owing to their guidance and encouragement that the
industry was soon a source of national wealth. By the thirteenth century
Aberdeen was famous for her speldrins and other dried fish. As for Loch
Fyne herrings, "In no place," says Lesley, "were herrings so fat and of
so pleasant a taste as in that loch"; and long before the bishop's time
their peculiar excellence had secured them a ready sale in foreign
parts. rube salmon fishery, how- ever, was probably the most important
of all. The abundance of salmon in Scottish rivers is proverbial, the
reason being no doubt that clearness of the water which comes of sandy
or stony courses. This abundance caused salmon to be at one time
despised by the wealthier classes in Scotland; and even in the
eighteenth century so plentiful was the fish in some districts of
Perthshire that the hinds made stipulations reducing the frequency of
its appearance on the bill of fare.
The virtues of the oyster were early
recognised. He figured along with buckies, limpets, partans, crabs, and
other shell-fish at the royal banquet at Stirling in 1594, on the
occasion of the baptism of Prince Henry; but not till long afterwards
did he become a fashionable luxury. Thus "glaikit fools ower rife o'
cash" were pampering their wames wi' fulsome trash," while Fergusson,
with the poet's discernment, was inditing odes to him—
"The halesomest and nicest gear
O' fish or flesh,"
and was prescribing him as one of the chief of medicines for mind or
body "Come prie,
frail man, for gin thou'rt sick,
The oyster is a rare cathartic
As ever doctor patient gart lick
To cure his ails;
Whether you hae the head or heart ache
It aye prevails."
It were hard to tell for how many ages the cry of "Caller oo" has been
skirled through Edinburgh, but it is safe to say that the most ancient
houses in High Street are younger than those which echoed back the first
"agreeable wild notes" of the "great mother'' of the noble Newhaven
succession. In the eighteenth century supping in oyster cellars was a
fashionable diversion of Edinburgh; and Major Top- ham, in his "Letters
from Edinburgh" (1776), remarks that the oyster cellar, named by its
votaries the "Temple," seemed "to give more real pleasure to the company
who visit it than either Ranelagh or the Pantheon." At such
entertainments the presence of ladies was not merely allowable, but
almost essential. Oyster suppers would not appear to have yet become an
institution in English towns, and the Major naïvely confesses that after
partaking of the fare he sat "waiting in expectation of a repast that
was never to make its appearance" till all else was forgotten in the
excellence of the brandy punch and the charming conversation of the
ladies, "who," he remarks, "to do them justice, are much more
entertaining than their neighbours in England," and discovered a great
deal of vivacity and fondness of repartee."
Mussels) the oyster's poor relation, were
probably consumed as early as the Roman period in the form of
mussel-brose. At any rate the burgh of that name is supposed to have
been a Roman station; nor is there any doubt that its fame and fortune,
like those of Newhaven, are based upon shellfish.
At Musselbiough, an' eke Newhaven
The fisher-wives will get top livin'
When lads gang out on Sunday's even
To treat their joes,
An' tak' o' fat pandores a prieven
Or mussel-brose."
Thus the veracious Fergusson; and how long the custom he describes
existed before it found its appropriate muse eludes research. |
