An introduction to the importance of Scottish Food Heritage from Dr Lindsay Middleton and Peter Gilchrist
The Scottish Food Heritage Symposium
An overview of the presentations, tasters and speakers at Scotland’s first symposium for Scottish food history
Focus on the Future
The outcomes of discussions from focus groups at the Scottish Food Heritage Symposium
Reccomendations for Scottish Food History
Actions to support the food heritage sector in Scotland
Dr Lindsay Middleton Peter Gilchrist
Scotland’s food heritage is wonderfully diverse and rich. Food is tied into all aspects of culture, and the stories we tell and habits we form around the way we eat inform not just our diets, but the ways we understand ourselves and each other. The history of Scottish food can illuminate our past in a way that has contemporary relevance across numerous sectors, from tourism and education to local and national food and drink production. To date, however, Scottish food heritage has been underexplored, and is underrepresented in our cultural lexicon.
As a food historian, researcher, and knowledge exchange practitioner who has worked across the heritage and food sector with a variety of partners, I have seen clear gaps in our understanding of Scotland’s food heritage. Stories of generational traditions, differences in regional and local food practices, nuanced ingredients and cooking techniques, and the way eating practices are imbricated into place, social life and culture are often flattened in the case of Scotland. Both within Scotland and through an international lens, our cuisine gets ‘type-cast’ into a few key dishes and ingredients that do not illustrate the culinary landscape fully.
These gaps present an exciting opportunity, however, to reinvest in Scotland’s food heritage. Not only does this have vast economic potential to bolster Scotland’s Food and Drink and Tourism industries, but it will also be transformative in terms of the way we engage with food in the day-to-day. Moving beyond cultural stereotypes and towards a more holistic understanding and appreciation of Scottish food and its history can instil cultural pride, promote awareness of healthy and sustainable eating practices, and protect and diversify our vibrant food culture.
Heritage is the core of Scotland’s £15B turnover from the nation’s Food and Drink businesses. This doesn’t include the income made from tourism, hospitality and media. This sector relies on a global reputation of quality, story and craftsmanship, supported exclusively by underfunded researchers, self-employed historians and last generation storytellers.
Investing in food heritage is not only important for safeguarding one of Scotland’s most profitable industries, but it also has the potential to repair the shame and stigma attached to our nation’s working-class food.
For the majority of my childhood, my family lived well below the poverty line. Potatoes made up two-thirds of every dinner plate and food instability was a constant concern. It was very clear from the world around me that the food we ate was something to be ashamed of. I never saw mince and dough balls on tv cooking shows. I never saw Lorne sausage in mainstream cookery books. I saw shortbread in tartan tins with stags and waterfalls. I saw adverts for Aberdeen Angus beef. I saw magazine spreads with langoustines. I saw food we couldn’t afford being championed as “great scottish produce” and I saw the food we ate being held up next to BMI charts and used as fodder for comedians.
There’s nothing wrong with championing great Scottish produce, but I believe that we need to shout about ALL of our food, even the plain fare. The pizza crunch is a story of immigrants. Morning rolls are a story of four centuries of baking excellence. Our nation’s sugar reliance is a story of female entrepreneurship. Scotch pies are a story of 19th century factory workers. Food history provides us with the roadmap for authentically and respectfully celebrating our food; all of our food, beyond the tartan tin.
Murray Pittock providing the keynote talk on the case for investing in Scottish food heritage
On the 12th of April over sixty food writers, content creators, researchers, heritage organisations, and individuals working in the food, drink, and tourism industries gathered in Paisley Town Hall for the sold-out Scottish Food Heritage Symposium, co-directed by Peter Gilchrist of Tenement Kitchen and Dr Lindsay Middleton from the University of Glasgow’s Food Catalyst.
The aim of the event was to champion the value of Scottish food heritage to culture, tourism, and placemaking, and make a case for future investment. Attendees were asked to reflect on and discuss the questions ‘What does Scottish Food Heritage mean to you?’ and ‘What can we do with Scottish food heritage?’
Championing Renfrew’s Local Larder
In his role as Regional Food Ambassador for Scotland Food and Drink, Peter Gilchrist opened the day by outlining the Renfrewshire Food Strategy he is currently collating: a strategy co-designed with the food sector and underpinned by historical research, that aims to champion the reputation of Renfrewshire as a food destination. Like the Symposium and the Food Catalyst, the Strategy will encourage partnerships across the food sector, and support the development of projects and products that emphasise Scottish food heritage. The strategy is currently under development, in partnership with Renfrewshire’s food and drink business, Renfrewshire Council and Scotland Food and Drink.
This was followed by a locally-produced, seasonal lunch provided by businesses featured in the Strategy: Barnhill Farm Shop, Auld’s Bakery, West Indies Pantry, Gatehouse Coffee Roasters and Paisley Drinks Co. Local food producers James Mackie (Barnhill) and Yoshiko Kalloo (West Indies Pantry) outlined the highlights and the challenges of running small-scale food business: procurement, competing with large-scale suppliers, and maintaining a customer base. The event closed with a drinks reception provided by Two Towns Down, Buddies Gin, and Dark God Rum, further showcasing offerings from Renfrew’s local larder.
The Scottish Food Heritage Symposium
Food Heritage: Presentations
Presenters from multiple sectors who are passionate about the value of food history and Scottish cuisine spoke at the Scottish Food Heritage Symposium, to showcase its rich potential. Ben Mervis (Fare Magazine; lead researcher for Netflix’s Chef’s Table) and Rachel McCormack (author and broadcaster, BBC R4’s The Kitchen Cabinet) discussed how food culture and provenance are mobilised internationally, turning to overseas food festivals to demonstrate how Scotland could learn from examples of best practice.
This was followed by Professor Murray Pittock’s presentation on ‘The Case for Scotland: Place and Provenance Economy’, which outlined the historic absence of food from cultural tourism in Scotland. Citing successful examples where produce is linked to provenance and heritage, including Burns’s influence on haggis consumption (with 41% of all Scottish haggis sales taking place during Burns season) and branding by Mossgiel Milk, Pittock demonstrated the potential economic benefits of better aligning food and cultural tourism. Results from the Scotland Visitor Survey 2023 showed that 48% of visitors mention history and culture as a reason for them to visit Scotland, but only 9% of respondents noted wanting to ‘go somewhere where there was great food’ as a driver. There is therefore a tangible gap between perceptions of Scottish history, culture, and Scottish food.
To give a taste of the current field of Scottish food history, researchers and folklorists delivered a series of ‘Bitesized’ talks. Dr Macon McCormack (Historian of Whisky), Eileen Budd (Storyteller, Scottish Book Trust), Dr Gina Lyle (Scottish Literature Researcher), Roslyn Potter (Early Modern Historian), and Scott Richardson-Reed (Folklorist, Cailleach’s Herbarium) covered diverse topics, from whisky advertising and bannocks, to novels and early-modern recipes. The presentations emphasised the variety of topics Scottish food heritage is intertwined with, while the question-and-answer session gave the audience the chance to ask questions about source material, collaborations, historical ingredients, recipes and food origins.
FOCUS ON THE FUTURE
Attendees participated in a focus-group activity to discuss and identify opportunities for food heritage in Scotland, and map what better investment in food heritage would allow. Using design-innovation tools developed by the Food Catalyst, attendees discussed and recorded their thoughts on three key points of enquiry:
The Cook: Who are you? What is you or your organisation’s interest in food heritage?
The Ingredients: What are the key needs, challenges, and opportunities you seek address? What is required to do so?
The Dream Dish: If there were more funding and resource for food heritage, what would you do to address those opportunities?
Responses from the mapping activity and discussions have been synthesised by the University of Glasgow’s Catalyst team. They centred on four interconnected key areas: Recognition & Reconnection, Education, Promoting & Celebrating and Resource.
Recognition & Reconnection
Participants agreed that Scottish Food Heritage does not receive enough recognition as a cultural asset, both within Scotland and internationally.
Discussions throughout the day demonstrated that using heritage to recentre food as a key aspect of Scottish identity would have manifold benefit for how Scots perceive their cuisine and culture, and for how international visitors engage with local Scottish produce and food when visiting. This would help to overcome what was perceived to be an overarching disconnect between Scottish culture and our cuisine, both past and present.
Within the Scottish context, this results in a lack of pride in our food, and participants noted that this creates a feedback loop in which food is consistently undervalued or stereotyped into a few dishes that are not fully representative. Often those stereotypes are negative, and feed into the narrative that all Scottish people eat are
fried, unhealthy foods. Attendees reflected that we don’t value Scottish food enough at home: ‘the story isn’t told well. There’s not enough pride in who we are. There’s too much disconnect between urban and rural life’. Key to this is reconnecting people to their food culture to build a sense of pride and belonging.
Education
Education was repeatedly mentioned as a challenge and an opportunity that could be supported by Scottish food heritage, in order to foster curiosity and pride, achieve the recognition and reconnection described above, and generate skills.
Participants highlighted that there is an untapped, generational wealth of knowledge around Scottish food and the many cultures that form it; learning to prepare food can build confidence and relationships amongst and between different communities, as an accessible, practical skill.
There was a call for practical and theoretical food education to be more-widely available and accessible, and tied into issues of sustainability and locality. Educational programmes that show people how to cook with seasonal, local Scottish ingredients and grow their own produce can encourage more sustainable, healthy habits. Examples of this exist around Scotland, but are often siloed.
Within food education, the Symposium highlighted that heritage and storytelling can provide context that enables people to connect with their food heritage. Traditional cooking methods and dishes are a powerful tool that can bolster local and cultural identity, break down barriers, and encourage self-expression. There is a need for resource and support to develop sustainable, conjoined educational programs for different types of learner (from school children to adult learners), and forming knowledge pipelines so those programmes are informed by
food heritage. The benefits of this are wideranging, from building individual confidence to nourishing talent and creating job opportunities within the hospitality industry.
Promoting & Celebrating
Promotion and celebration should be harnessed to drive both education and wider recognition of the value of Scottish food heritage, and reach wider and diverse audiences.
There is a clear appetite for events and initiatives that celebrate Scottish food heritage, demonstrated by the popularity of the Symposium, the media engagement, and subsequent requests for follow-up events. Attendees signalled a need for an infrastructure that centres Scottish food heritage and enables sustained celebration at local, regional, and national levels, and that achieves a broader influence.
Suggestions from Symposium attendees included: a series of regional food festivals, twinned with other food producing regions; heritage award schemes; local food showcases; food curators at museums; publications; heritage food tours in Scottish towns and regions, involving local hospitality venues and chefs; marketing resources for Scottish food producers that highlight heritage; restaurant collaborations between chefs and museums/heritage venues that highlight historical food and local produce. A Scottish Food Heritage fund would enable these events and foster new collaborations across the Food and GLAM sectors (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums).
Resource
Discussions showed that key to all of the above is resource: funding and support for Scottish Food Heritage from policymakers and in legislation.
While language and historical buildings have public bodies to support them (Bòrd na Gàidhlig for Gaelic development, and the National Trust for Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland for heritage properties and locations), there is not an equivalent infrastructure for food heritage. Closest is the Food Tourism Action Plan launched by Scotland Food & Drink and the Scottish Tourism Alliance, which includes a pillar on ‘Rich Storytelling’ that recognises that ‘when food tourism experiences are tied to the history, heritage and culture of the food and drink, the experience itself is richer’. The Action Plan promises to resource the development of Scottish food tourism, and heritage should be a focal point of that.
Better resource for Scottish food heritage would accomplish more than just increased tourism, however, enabling localised economic and social benefits. Strategically aligning this with tourism, the Good Food Nation act, and Sustainable Development Goals (2: Zero Hunger) would allow for more conjoined, sustainable efforts. Symposium attendees working across the food sector repeatedly noted that they require better resource to achieve their aims, and that Scottish food heritage is an untapped asset which can bolster these initiatives, if it is duly funded.
‘when food tourism experiences are tied to the history, heritage and culture of the food and drink, the experience itself is richer’.
Recommendations for Scottish Food Heritage
The discussions and conclusions that emerged from the Symposium highlight the passion for and potential of Scotland’s Food Heritage. As an insofar untapped resource, food heritage can be transformative across multiple sectors: tourism; hospitality; education; policy; placemaking, and more. Around and beyond Scotland, there a clear appetite for better representation of Scottish food heritage, and excellent work is taking place to increase pride and build awareness, but there are clear gaps in the support such work receives. To begin filling those gaps, the Food Catalyst and Tenement Kitchen have suggested a series of five recommendations based on the discussion that took place at the Symposium. These recommendations will support and enable further development in Scottish Food Heritage:
Creation of a funding stream for Scottish Food Heritage
A dedicated funding stream would enable a series of localised and national projects. Examples from the Symposium included the digitisation of cookbook and recipe archives; bursaries for research projects and collaborations; creation of food tours and guides for Scottish locations; a budget for heritagedriven marketing campaigns.
Creation of heritage officer posts Heritage officers or ambassadors would help champion key ingredients and products, participate in events and educational initiatives, and raise the profile of Scottish food heritage to diverse audiences.
Creation of a series of events that champion regional Scottish food heritage
Symposium attendees called for regional food history festivals, livecookery demonstrations with local chefs and ingredients, restaurant popups in heritage locations, prizes for food producers, and food heritage programming in Scottish media.
Creation of a network of chefs, content-creators, historians, food producers and businesses interested in Scottish food heritage
A Scottish Food Heritage network would allow for knowledge sharing and idea creation, better connections between media, research, and the food and heritage sectors, and cross-sectoral networking activities.
Creation of food heritage education programmes
Food heritage could add value to existing further education cookery programmes, create new opportunities in the hospitality industry, as well as being integrated into the Curriculum for Excellence, and established with heritage properties for learners of all stages.
Support for these recommendations will be explored by the Food Catalyst and Tenement Kitchen, via the Scottish Food and Drink Histories Partnership Lab. To find out more and get involved email coah-catalyst@glasgow.ac.uk.
This report and the Scottish Food Heritage Symposium is a collaboration between Tenement Kitchen, and the University of Glasgow’s Arts & Humanities Food Catalyst. The 2024 Scottish Food Heritage Symposium was funded by the Renfrewshire Council Culture, Heritage and Events Fund.
