On The Side

Flamber? It’s what pyromaniacs do. Except, in Glasgow High Court they call it arson. But to flamber is simply the French term for setting on fire. With insouciant French style the Larousse Gastronomique explains that this is done both to enhance flavour and to demonstrate culinary showmanship. Well forget the former. You can enhance flavour…

​HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOM’S FOOD!   Sarah Mellersh Bill Kerr AP Stephen Jardine L Johnston, Edinburgh Nigel Eastmond Craig Millar Vikki Wood Willie McCurrach Fred Berkmiller It astonishes me to realise that a year has passed since the new Tom’s Food! website first saw the light of day. And depressing to think that it was launched…

SCOFF A History of Food and Class in Britain Pen Vogler Atlantic Books                            pp 470                                             £20 When I first heard about…

CHEF WATCH Featuring Neil Forbes, Chef Director of Cafe St Honoré, Edinburgh How long have you been a chef? I have been a chef for roughly 35 years but if you included time at my parents’ and grandmother’s side cooking then I guess I have always been a cook. I recall the soup pot early…

Hmm, I wonder what the E might possibly stand for in a food alphabet? For those who follow me on Twitter, I often have a teaser quiz a day or two before. Not this week. I did think about being really sneaky and featuring eel or éclair or endive, but you would probably have taken…

To celebrate the first birthday of Tom’s Food! next month I asked some food celebrities for contributions. The Scotsman newspaper has greatly expanded its food and drink section over the past few years. My only criticism of this is that for some odd reason, all the writers are female. The finest of these is Cat Thomson. She…

There are of course many ways in which you can improve your culinary skills. Six months at the Cordon Bleu Cookery School will help. Or follow the lead of that lady in Julie and Julia, who set out to make every single dish in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. But let’s assume you lack the…

Daniel, Norman and Alison Milne On a gloriously sunny November day I am on Demperston Farm, just outside Auchtermuchty in the Kingdom of Fife. The view is idyllic, looking south over the Lomond Hills. Alison Milne, however, is in reflective mode. As a society, we have never been more disconnected from our food and how…

I wish back for just one normal evening. I was loved and I was never hungry, and for a small girl from Currock, that was as good as things get. We all know now that the small girl from Currock went on to do many more things. But until I read this, her autobiography, all I…

CHEF WATCH Featuring Fred Berkmiller, Chef Patron of L’escargot bleu, Broughton Street, Edinburgh How long have you been a chef? I started my apprenticeship at the age of 14, and took my first head chef job was when I was 23. Why did you become a chef? I didn’t really choose to, rather I was…

As a solicitor I have in my time engaged in very many aspects of legal practice. The one that gave me least satisfaction was conveyancing, transferring title to heritable property. There would, however, be the the occasional nugget of interest; an odd title condition, say, or some weird and wonderful names. Who knew, for example,…

    Long Island Duck I started this article looking to escape from the misery of a dreich and wet Sunday. Some hours on, with the brain nipping, I’m really wishing I hadn’t. The source of my perplexity (at this stage I neither know nor care whether that is a real word) will become clear…

We’ve all seen that fridge magnet. It was quite amusing the first time. (No, I don’t have one. Mine is the equally classic Life’s too short to drink bad wine, of which more later.) But for the inexperienced cook, keeping wine out of the pan and pouring it into the gob can sometimes be the…

CHEF WATCH Scottish Chef of the Year Featuring Bill Kerr, two time winner, Scottish Chef of the Year, producer of some of the best food I have ever eaten in my life. Why did you become a chef? At high school when I was 12, the Scottish Electricity Board advertised a cooking competition. I came…

Most of us will have eaten in a restaurant which has only just opened its doors. We will take in the decor, probably smile a little at the inexperience of the waiting staff, then get stuck in to the menu and wine list. How many of us give any thought at all to the process…

Last month I spent a pleasant Sunday at the Edinburgh New Town Cookery School. It occurred to me that although I have been on a fair few such courses over the past twenty odd years, and on several continents, I don’t recall reading many column inches on them. So here are some thoughts. Michelin Starred…

One of the many benefits for me since I launched the On The Side column has been the chance to meet so many new people in the food industry. I can’t say that about today’s food hero, Tom Courts. Why not? Because I’ve known him since he was a very young man. And to make…

If you want to begin at the beginning, you will have to go back about 4000 years to what is now Mexico. Archaeologists have established – I know not how – that chocolate beverages were being consumed from that time. The word they use for those early consumers is Mesoamericans, whose area stretched from modern…

CHEF WATCH Featuring Craig Millar, Chef proprietor of Craig Millar @16 West End, St Monans, Fife How long have you been a chef? I have been a chef (including college) for 33years Why did you become a chef? I always say I became a chef as a matter of survival as my Mum was never…

Even as lockdown eases, life can still seem a little, well, humdrum. We may be able to eat out, but there is a definite lack of spontaneity. Even the simple pleasure of popping in somewhere for a drink is accompanied by someone (alarmingly) pointing what looks like a laser site at the middle of your…

Neil Gilmour and Andy Smith It’s the middle of August. Andy Smith and Neil Gilmour should be celebrating the second birthday of their fledgling business, Castle Game Scotland. The truth is, however, that they are far too busy. I was introduced to them and to their wonderful produce some time before lockdown. L and I…

1 September is National Tofu Day. Time to celebrate? No, I’m not a fan of the stuff either. But it does give me an excuse to write about my first hand experience of making the stuff. Well, almost first hand. It was our first full day in Vietnam, and also the first day of 2020.…

I know I said that On The Side would be taking a break and wouldn’t return till September. Well, fortunately, this column is more flexible than its editor. I was penning a review and added a section about the Government’s Eat Out to Help Out (EOTHO) scheme. It then dawned on me that as this…

CHEF WATCH Featuring Stuart Muir, chef and co-proprietor of Dine, Edinburgh   How long have you been a chef? I started work as a commis chef at age 16 so 35 years ago now … Why did you become a chef? I used to go fishing and shooting with my father when I was young…