The Scottish Council on Archives is currently running a campaign called The Edible Archive which is seeking recipes from archive collections (and family cookbooks) across Scotland. They hope to create an archival cookbook from the recipes collected and also stage a feast featuring selected recipes. It’s a fantastic idea for raising the profile of archives and the campaign has already caught the attention of STV. We were keen to contribute but unfortunately our collections don’t have much of a culinary flavour. However while sorting through some uncatalogued boxes of material in our Tait & Watson collections this morning I came across an interesting recipe at the back of a notebook containing notes on religious subjects and popular songs. I’m guessing it won’t make it into the cookbook… or feature in the feast…
Potted Head
Ingredients – 1 ox head, 2 cow heels, pepper, salt and mace Mode soak the head in salt and water till it is quite free of blood and cleanse the heels thoroughly then put into a large stew pan and boil for 4 hours, then strain off the liquor then put the meat back into it and simmer the whole slowly for 5 ½ hours till it is thick and tender Now boil up quickly add salt pepper and pounded mace to taste then put into pots Time 9 ½ hours Average cost 4α per lb cow heels 6α each Season at any time
