Fresh seafood, heather honey, oats, dulse seaweed, and kale: Scotland’s larder is increasingly enjoyed on a world stage featured on Michelin star menus and even touted as ‘cult’ cuisine.1 Our earliest extant writings and song in Scotland explore, celebrate, and criticise food. An obvious example is, of course, ‘To a Haggis’. Eaten on Burns night, the poem has made that combination of warm oats, offal, and onion culturally synonymous with Scottish cuisine worldwide. Traditional songs like ‘Cauld Kail in Aberdeen’ (cold soup and leftover mashed potato) and Gàidhlig puirt-a-beul ‘Brochan Lom’ (about feebly made porridge) poke fun at and yet acknowledge the harder parts of a Scottish culinary calendar year. Meanwhile, the well-loved ‘Strawberries’ by Edwin Morgan is redolent of those crackling summer days when ripe fruit doesn’t feel like an indulgence, but a necessity. Food is an abundant metaphor in literature, but it arises naturally, sparking sensory perceptions as well as speaking to important social, historical, and global issues, as in Hannah Lavery’s ‘Scotland, you’re no mine’. Our personal, sensory and embodied understandings of food continue to provoke a range of responses from delight and amusement to despair and disgust.
Our earliest Scottish writers understood how to harness their audiences’ conception of the pleasures and the dangers of the table. The preoccupation with personal health and understanding of food as medicine was ubiquitous in medieval and early modern Scotland, across rank, gender, and occupation. In an era before germ theory, it was believed that the best way to avoid a visit to the dreaded chirurgeon (surgeon) was through eating and drinking the right things. Also, since the first formal hospitals in Scotland were not established until 1728, health began at home.2 Exactly what contributed to this magic formula of good nutrition, however, was difficult to determine. For centuries, belief in Galenic humoral theory dominated medieval and early modern medical understanding throughout Europe, having been translated through Arabic cultural centres from their original Greek sources across several millennia. Each person’s individual ‘complexion’ was made up of their unique blend of humours: phlegm (wet and cold), blood (wet and hot), yellow bile/choler (dry and hot) and black bile/melancholy (dry and cold). To remain active and healthy, it was essential to keep the humours in balance. Since plants and animals were also believed to have contained these characteristics, you literally were what you ate: fresh cherries cooled a hot stomach; sage warmed and cleansed the liver; bread made with barley was ‘unwholesome’ for melancholy people. However, availability of these ingredients was not guaranteed depending on seasonality, rarity, cost, or occasionally unsuccessful distillation and preservation practices. Alternative and often contradictory advice abounded, and recipes and remedies were often shared through manuscripts, letters, and word-of-mouth. Aberdeen’s popular Almanac, printed annually since the 1620s, offered rhyming couplets that provided memorable advice on how best to approach the coming month. In February, for example, readers were warned to: ‘Beware of Cold, take choise of Food, / Lest Sicknes in the Body breed.’3
Although more comprehensive and direct guides, such as Nicholas Culpeper’s Complete Herball (first printed as The English Physician, 1652), became more accessible throughout the seventeenth century, many people continued to rely upon, and were more likely to trust, local, household, and domestic knowledge. Church of Scotland minister James Carmichaell (1542–1628) collated proverbs from his parish and on his travels. Some show the widespread mistrust of the ‘mediciners’ and their professional advice. ‘Better byde the cuiks, nor the mediciners’4 shows the importance of diet to maintain good health. Carmichaell’s contemporary, the sixteenth-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, wrote vehemently against most doctors’ advice calling their prescriptions ‘trash and fooleries which rather carry a face of magical enchantment than of any solid science.’5 Montaigne scorns those physicians that prescribe ‘good hope’ through sham ingredients such as
the left foot of a tortoise, the urine of a lizard, the dung of an elephant, the liver of a mole, blood drawn from under the right wing of a white pigeon … so scornfully they use us in our miseries.
6
His wry aside acknowledges the vulnerability of patients in the hands of their quack physicians.
The makar Robert Henryson (fl. 1460–1505) wrote ‘Sum Practysis of Medecyne’ mirroring Montaigne’s later reflections. The poem pokes fun at the overt charlatanism Henryson observes in the medical profession, obvious from the opening line: ‘Guk guk, gud day, schir’ (l. 1). ‘Guk guk’ is the call of the cuckoo, at this time very much associated with foolishness.7 The verses that follow offer a mixture of plausible and implausible remedies that range from reasonable to absurdly superstitious. For ‘Dia Culcakit’ (befouled-rectum prescription) the speaker suggests:
Lawrean and linget seid and the luffage,
The hair of the hurcheoun nocht half deill hakkit
With the snout of ane selch ane swelling to swage (ll. 31–33).
Laurel, flax seed and lovage are commonplace, but the hair of a hedgehog and the snout of a seal perhaps less so. For ‘Dia Longum’ (the ‘long prescription’ – a remedy for erectile dysfunction) the ingredients become yet more impossible:
Recipe thre ruggis of the reid ruke,
The gant of ane gray meir, the claik of ane gus,
The dram of ane drekters, the douk of ane duke,
The gaw of ane grene dow, the leg of ane lous,
Fyve unce of ane fle wing, the fyn of ane fluke (ll. 41–45).
While a grey mare’s grunt and goose’s cluck are admittedly difficult to distil into a vial, flounder’s fin and duck’s penis were actually thought to be effective aphrodisiacs at this time.8 Again, the plausible and implausible sit alongside one another indicating the comic mistrust of contemporary prescribed remedies. Henryson’s ultimate punchline for ‘Dia Custrom’ (cough medicine) is suggested:
Recipe thre sponfull of the blak spyce
With ane grit gowpene of the gowk fart,
The lug of ane lyoun, the gufe of ane gryce,
Ane unce of ane oster poik at the nethir parte (ll. 68–71)
Black pepper mixed with a lion’s ear, the grunt of a pig, an oyster’s stomach and a cuckoo’s fart. This obvious parody drips with cynicism but what appears to have annoyed both of these great Humanist writers most is the physician’s prescription of ‘hope’. The truth is that many ordinary people, desperate for cures and answers, aphrodisiacs and contraception, would have followed any advice, no matter how superficial or implausible. However, there were alternatives.
‘Eat measurelie and defye the mediciners’ was another common proverb promoting food over physician’s prescriptions.9 Of the many attendants in Gavin Douglas’s The Palice of Honour (1501), those who serve the table are highly respected:
Temperance is Cuik his meit to taist and preif,
Humilitie Carwer, that na wicht list to grief,
His Maister Sewar hecht Verteous discipline.
Mercie is Copper and mixis weill his wine. (ll. 1806–09)
The speaker is attended by Temperance, who tastes and approves his food; Humility is represented as a carver (who no man would wish to annoy); the main table attendant, the Miaster Server, is disciplined, and the cupmaker mixes sensible drinks. The extended metaphor of these allegorical table attendants displays the importance of moderation. King Hart, the eponymous protagonist of another Douglas poem is surrounded by his five servitors, representing the five senses. Having not yet heeded the grave warnings of Temperence, King Hart blames the allegorical ‘Rere Supper’ for ‘this rottin stomak, ȝat I beir aboute’ (ll. 913–15). The King also complains that ‘Myn wittis hes he waistit oft with wyne, / And maid my stomak with hait lustis leap’ (ll. 919–20). Too much wine muddles his head and creates ‘hot’ feelings of lust in his stomach. In Galenic theory, an excess of choler (yellow bile, located in the stomach or gallbladder) led to heightened emotions like anger or passion. These warnings of excess are echoed in the richly sensory ‘Qua doutis dremis is bot phantasye?’ also known as ‘Lychton’s dreame’ (c. 1480) – an anonymous Eldrich lyric that contains several culinary impossibilities and allusions to food. The speaker runs into a wall made of ‘mussill teith’ (l. 10), bumps his head on a mound of cream (l. 20), drinks deeply from a dry well (l. 23), and comes across two Biblical figures, Enoch and Elye, who are ‘roastand straberries at ane fyre of snaw’ (l. 42). The textural and sensory playfulness becomes psychedelic as the speaker is scooped into the mouth of a flying white whale (l. 60). Finally, the speaker comes-to in a farmyard with his head against a wall, and ‘gentill aill’ is blamed the cause of his dreams (l. 90). To some, this may be an endorsement but to many, Carmichaell’s proverb encouraging moderation was something to be respected, yet so very easy to ignore.
Many were familiar with the medieval folk myth of the ‘Land of Cockaigne’. This ‘land of plenty’ which (cf. Kildare poems, Brugel’s famous painting) offers wish fulfilment in the form of sexual freedom, ‘topsy-turvy’ power-switching, and bountiful access to delicious food. While often depicted as a utopia, a principal understanding of Cockaigne is ‘there can be too much of a good thing.’ Het Luilekkerland (literally ‘the Lazy-Tasty Land’), the well-known oil painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525–1569), depicts three prone figures suffering from a feasting-related indulgence – the lord as well as the labourer suffer equally from their gluttony. After a period of possible insufficiency due to famine, pestilence, or bad harvests, the pleasures of the table are undeniably appealing.
There are few tables as lavishly laden in early Scottish poetry as in the fifteenth-century fabliau The Freris of Berwick (c. 1480) and while comedy at the expense of the apparently ascetic mendicant orders is frequent throughout, food plays a key role in the poem’s punchlines. The Freris of Berwick tells the story of two Jacobin friars walking into Berwick seeking a place to rest for the night. They knock on the door of an inn and are received by Alesone, whose husband, Symon, is away from home. Alesone, expecting company of a different sort, hastily bundles the unwelcome pair into the attic while she prepares for the arrival of Friar Johine, ‘hir luvis – supper for to dicht’ (l. 122). Alesone provides a bountiful feast that tells us she seeks to impress:
[She] thristit on fatt caponis to the speit,
And fat cunnyngis to the fyre can lay,
And bad hir madin, in all the haist scho may,
To flawme and tyrne and rost thame tenderly. (ll. 134–38)
Roast chicken and rabbit are prepared on a spit over a roaring fire which burns with warm welcome and delight. The opulence continues as Johine arrives bringing with him
ane pair of bossis gude and fyne—
They hald ane gallone full of Gascone wyne;
And al sane pair of pertrikis richt new slane
And eik ane creill full of breid of mane (ll. 157–60).
Rich French wine, partridges, and panis Dominicus (the ‘Lord’s bread’, made from the highest quality manchet flour) are offered to complete the lavish table that Alesone has ‘cuverit with clath of costly greyne’ (l. 146). All of this absurd (and even otherworldly) decadence emphasises the pair’s unrestrained physical desire for each other. While a medieval audience would have understood the clear signals of comic excess, they would have also read the ingredients themselves. It was well known in premodern medicine that consuming animals known for their ‘lasciviousness’ will ‘provoke lust and aid conception.’10 Boar, deer, partridge, rabbit, and capon were listed ingredients among the countless recipes to aid conception since the writings of Hippocrates and Galen.
A knock on the door interrupts their decadent feast. Alarmingly for the couple, Alesone’s husband Symon has returned early. Thinking quickly, Alesone instructs Johine to hide in a large chest that holds flour for baking (the results of which create a ridiculous visual gag later in the poem). Hiding evidence of the lover’s feast in the almorie (cupboard), Symon’s welcome is somewhat different to Johine’s:
Syne welcomit him on maist hairtly wyis.
He bad the madin kindill on the fyre,
Syne, ‘Graith me meit and tak the all the hyre.’
The gudwyfe said schortly, ‘Ye may trow,
Heir is no meit that ganand is for yow.’ [not suitable for you]
Rather than the fire that burned for Johine’s arrival, it has been deliberately extinguished, and Symon must ask for it to be rekindled. Symon’s request for meit (sustenance) is flatly rejected and Alesone, adding insult to injury, replies ‘there is nothing here suitable for you.’
‘How sa, fair deme? Ga, gait me cheis and breid!
Ga fill the stowp! Hald me no mair in pleid.
For I am verry tyrit, wett and cauld.’Than up scho rais and durst nocht mair be bauld,
Cuverit the burde, thairon sett meit in hy–Ane sowsit nolt fute and schepheid haistely–
And sum cauld meit scho brocht to hym believe
And fillit the stowp. The gudman then was blyth.
The cheese, bread, cold meat, sow’s feet and sheep’s head offered to Symon seems meagre in comparison to the roasted game meat offered to Johine. The stowp (a drinking vessel commonly associated with ale) is filled and, opposing the fine French wine, it is likely Symon took beer or ale with his meal. Although commonplace, ale was unkindly described as ‘old and sick men’s drink’.11 Notably, Symon’s complaint of being ‘wett and cauld’ immediately signals his innate humoral structure as phlegmatic. A commonly held belief regarding the humours was that characteristically ‘colder’ and ‘wetter’ people were not as good in bed as ‘hot’ and ‘dry’ complexions – Symon’s constitution, mirrored by the fireplace imagery, is entirely unattractive to Alesone. The comparison between the two men is cruel yet comic, and masterfully demonstrated through the medieval audience’s expectations and comprehensions of the metaphorical and literal table.
The tables in early Scottish literature are laden with potential new meanings and interpretations, and it is down to us to dig in and enjoy. Meanwhile, we could all heed the advice given by the Aberdeen Almanac for December: ‘Now drink good Sack, laugh and be jollie, / For that will cure all Melanchollie’ (f. 6v).
End Notes
- See Jeffrey Lewis, ‘Cult Boyfriend’, A Turn in the Dream-Songs (Rough Trade, 2011): ‘Like haggis or fugu, food for cult eaters’.
- Charlotte Holmes, ‘Domestic Medicine in Early Modern Scotland, c.1650–c. 1750’, PhD thesis (University of Edinburgh, 2022), p. 49.
- Aberdeen Almanac (Aberdeen: John Forbes, 1682), f. 2r.
- ‘Better to put your trust in a cook than a doctor.’ The James Carmichaell Collection of Proverbs in Scots, ed. By M. L. Anderson (Edinburgh University Press, 1957), p. 61.
- Michel de Montaigne, ‘Of experience’ in The Essays of Michele de Montaigne, translated P. Coste (W. Millar, London, 1811 [1580]), vol. 3, pp. 357–431.
- Montaigne, Essays, p. 430.
- See ‘gowk’, DSL; cf. The Complaynte of Scotland (1549).
- See Jennifer Evans, Aphrodisiacs, Fertility and Medicine in Early Modern England (Boydell and Brewer, 2014).
- The James Carmichaell Collection of Proverbs in Scots, ed. By M. L. Anderson (Edinburgh University Press, 1957), p. 68.
- Jennifer Evans, Aphrodisiacs, Fertility and Medicine in Early Modern England (Boydell and Brewer, 2014), p. 117.
- William Harrison, ‘A Description of England’ (1577), quoted in David Gentilcore, Food and Health in Early Modern Europe: Diet, Medicine and Society, 1450–1800 (Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 166–67.