Cranachan Ice Cream
Can only be made in spells of exceptionally cold weather.
INGREDIENTS
One nieve of oatmeal
Daud of unsalted butter
Spoonful of honey
Spoonful of raspberries
Two cups of cream
METHOD
Fry oats in butter until light brown and crispy. Add honey, cream and raspberries. Spoon into empty, cleaned tin can, tie securely in a bag and leave in the lower reaches of the burn overnight, supporting it upright with stones.
Fish Piece
INGREDIENTS
Leftover cooked herring or kippers, or tinned sardines
Packet of potato crisps
Two slices of bread and butter
METHOD
Layer fish in sandwich with butter and scatter with potato crisps. Serve.
Guga
INGREDIENTS
One dried bird per person
Water to cover
METHOD
Boil guga in pan of water, skim off grease and reserve. Add more water, boil again and skim off grease once more. Repeat as necessary, up to a dozen times. Serve the bird with boiled new potatoes and kale. The grease can be used as furniture polish, floor wax, wheel lubricant or face cream for the ladies (though it can be ill-smelling).
Mealie Creeshie
INGREDIENTS
One nieve of oatmeal
Daud of bacon fat
METHOD
Fry oatmeal in bacon fat until light brown and crisp. Can be served with fried onions if available.
Nettle Soup
INGREDIENTS
One onion
Butter
Three nieves of nettle leaves (preferably young tops, harvested using gloves)
One potato
Stock made from boiled bones (mutton, beef or chicken)
Salt
Pepper
Swirl of cream if available
METHOD
Fry onion in butter. Dice potato, skin on, and fry for five minutes with onion. Add stock. Once potato is soft add two nieves of chopped nettles. Boil for twenty minutes. Add remaining nieve. Boil for five minutes. Serve with pepper, salt and swirl of cream.
Pancakes
INGREDIENTS
One and a half nieves of self-raising flour
Two tablespoons of caster sugar
One teaspoon of baking powder
One egg
One cup of sour milk or buttermilk
METHOD
Mix dry ingredients. Add egg, mix well, then milk. Mix again. Put one spoonful of mixture onto hot greased griddle and cook until bubbles begin to form. Turn over and cook other side briefly. They should be shiny and golden brown. Serve hot with butter.
Pea Brae
INGREDIENTS
One nieve of dried marrowfat peas
One teaspoon of salt
Three cups of water
Two cups of malt vinegar
METHOD
Soak peas with salt in water overnight. Boil till soft then add vinegar. Mash, drink the liquid hot and eat the pea mush with a spoon.
Soda Bread
INGREDIENTS
Four nieves of flour
One teaspoon of salt
One and a half teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda
One and a half cups of buttermilk
METHOD
Sift dry ingredients. Add buttermilk. Mix to soft dough. Knead. Shape into flat round. Bake for 30 minutes on moderately high heat.
Soorocks Salad
INGREDIENTS
Handful of soorocks (wood sorrel)
Tomato
Small onion
METHOD
Wash soorocks. Scatter over sliced tomato. Garnish with chopped onion.
Tablet
INGREDIENTS
Half a pound of butter
One pint of water
Four pounds of caster sugar
One tin of sweetened condensed milk
Optional: nieve of walnuts; drop of vanilla essence
METHOD
Melt butter in water in pan over low heat then add sugar and bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Add condensed milk and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Remove from heat and add optional ingredients if desired then beat well for five minutes. Pour into a greased tin and score into squares when partially set.
Tattie Scones
INGREDIENTS
Half a pound of floury potatoes, boiled and mashed
One ounce of butter
Half a nieve of flour
Salt
Pepper
METHOD
Mix in the flour with potatoes, butter and seasoning. Roll out the dough on a floured board. Prick with a fork and cut into rounds. Mark the rounds into quarter wedges with a knife. Cook on a hot greased griddle for about four minutes each side, or until golden. Serve with butter.
Whisky Toddy, or Hot Toddy
An island cure-all.
INGREDIENTS
Whisky
One lemon
One spoon of honey
Water (if required)
METHOD
Boil water. Squeeze lemon into large mug. Add similar amount of boiled water if required. Mix with honey. Fill to the brim with whisky. Serve. Repeat as necessary. Good before a voyage and by the fireside, as a morning stiffener and an evening soother, in the mirk of winter and the skyre of summer, to lubricate companionship and celebrate solitude, to aid storytelling and ease silence. Recommended treatment for Morbus Fascariensis.
—Grigor McWatt, 2010, The Fascaray Compendium
Appendix II
HAME TAE FASCARAY
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Scotland has, in my view, the finest landscape in the world and one of the richest and best-documented histories and cultures of any small nation in western Europe. Only a few of the sources drawn on for this novel could be cited in the select bibliography.
I would like to thank early readers of the book in typescript—Carmen Callil, Richard Eyre, Jane Maud, Gail Rebuck, Mary Kaye Schilling and Peter Straus—for their encouragement and astute comments.
Special thanks are due to my family—like my sources, too numerous to mention in these pages—but I single out my cousin Bobby Winslow, teacher and musician, my nephew Calum McAfee, scholar of Scots and Irish literature, and historian Cornelius McAfee, my Irish twin and fellow-Fascaradian, all of whom lent their expertise to this novel.
For the Scots language my debt is, once more, primarily to my family, in particular to my late parents and to my aunts, maternal and paternal. Alison Lang gave invaluable assistance with Gaelic (any mistakes are mine); Sabhal Mòr Ostaig College on the Isle of Skye gave me grounding in the basics of this remarkable endangered language, spoken by fewer than two percent of Scots, which survives in some of the most beautiful regions of the country and is memorialised in its place names and in a wonderful tradition of song and verse.
Thanks are also due to Glasgow musician and singer Callum Rae, who with his band The Corellas—David McLachlan, Alex Smith and Jim Lang—recorded a stirring version of “Hame tae Fascaray,” with backing vocals by my brother Conn McAfee and cousins Alex and Nick Muir.
Finally I am indebted, as always, to my husband, Ian McEwan, for his wise suggestions, gently offered, and for his patience and support.
Annalena McAfee, November 2016
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
“Sea Fever” by John Masefield © The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of John Masefield.
“Home and Love” by Robert Service © Anne Longépé.
“The Waste Land” from Collected Poems 1909–1962 by T. S. Eliot © 1936 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Copyright © renewed 1964 by Thomas Stearns Eliot. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company and Faber and Faber, Ltd. All rights reserved.
“This Be the Verse” from The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin,
edited by Archie Burnett. Copyright © 2012 by The Estate of Philip Larkin. Introduction copyright © 2012 by Archie Burnett. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
“A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle” from Selected Poetry by Hugh MacDiarmid © 1992 by Alan Riach and Michael Grieve. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation and Carcanet Press Limited.
“To a Lady Seen from the Train” by Frances Cornford © Used with the permission of the trustees of Frances Crofts Cornford Will Trust.
“Tarantella” from Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc © Used by permission of Peters Fraser & Dunlop (www.petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of the Estate of Hilaire Belloc.
“Cargoes” by John Masefield © The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of John Masefield.
“The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes © The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Alfred Noyes.
“Not Waving but Drowning” from Collected Poems and Drawings by Stevie Smith © Used by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” from The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas by Dylan Thomas © Used by permission of David Higham Associates Limited.
“East Coker” from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot © 1936 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Copyright © renewed 1964 by T. S. Eliot. Copyright © 1940, 1942 by T. S. Eliot. Copyright © renewed 1968, 1970 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company and Faber and Faber, Ltd. All rights reserved.
“My Inner Life” by Robert Service © Anne Longépé.
“The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare © The Literary Trustees of Walter de la Mare and the Society of Authors as their representative.
All poems cited are translated from the original English into Scots, with the exception of Hugh MacDiarmid’s lines from “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle,” which are reprinted in the original Scots.
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