Tartan Day

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Tartan Day is a Scottish holiday the same way Orange Chicken is authentic Chinese food. In short, it's not. If we want to be pedantic it's really just a North American take on things. Tartan Day was first held as a one-off event in New York City 1982 and then was picked up again in the mid-eighties by members of the Scottish diaspora in Canada. Since then it's grown in popularity throughout North America, and in other parts of the world as well. In recent years, in fact, it's even been picked up in Scotland, largely as a way to promote tourism (though pictures of the countryside alone should do the trick).

Black Watch Tartan

So, what exactly is a tartan then? Well, it's the criss-crossing multicolor design you'll see on kilts (or on Scotch Tape for that matter). Different designs can represent different regions or clans, though some are universal and can be worn by anyone (like the Black Watch, seen above). If you want to have a bit of fun and get into the spirit, why not try this webpage that lets you design your own. 

The holiday was chosen to commemorate the end of the 1747 Act of Proscription, which basically had made it illegal to wear anything with a tartan pattern (I'm sure it was enforced by the original fashion police). Today though, the day is much more about celebrating Scottish heritage. And though I don't have as much as a wee dram of Scottish blood in me, I decided to get together as authentic of a Scottish dinner as possible (especially since we had some guests over).

Probably the first Scottish dish that comes to mind would be haggis, but that sounded a bit too complicated for the amount time we had. So I put to together the far simpler dish, mince and tatties (which is ground beef and potatoes). A really easy recipe can be found here. Instead of adding extra gravy, I just put 3 tsps of cornstarch in (since I figured gravy, plus beef stock, plus the meat itself was a bit of overkill). I also added peas. I just diced the potatoes and boiled them to tender, then sprinkled them with rosemary.

All that was leftover from the evening

The mince and tatties alone was pretty tasty, but the real highlight of the night was making Scotland's most famous desert: fried candy bars. Though Mars bars are apparently more authentic, we had some Snickers bars handy. You need to make sure they are frozen for at least a couple of hours before, so that they don't melt in the oil. Then make up some pancake batter (which must include eggs, so that it sticks properly to the candy bar) and completely soak the bar in the batter. At this point, you want to deep fry it for around 30-50 seconds. We don't own a deep fryer, so we just put a bunch of oil into a small pot and it worked fine. The oil does need to be hot enough though, otherwise the whole thing will fall apart. 

We spent the rest of the evening watching the episode of Samantha Brown where she goes to Edinburgh and commenting about how gorgeous it is there (again, seriously, have you seen any pictures?) If you can't go, at the very least get on grooveshark and search for some bagpipe music.