Chef Michael Gilligan: St. Andrews Day

Chef Michael Gilligan: St. Andrews Day: "This Tuesday is St. Andrews day. The following day on Wednesday in celebration of this, Aston Vile will be slaughtered at the temple of S..."

St. Andrews Day

This Tuesday is St. Andrews day. The following day on Wednesday in celebration of this, Aston Vile will be slaughtered at the temple of St. Andrews by the mighty Birmingham City in the Quarter Final of the League Cup. Blessed be the Blues.

My beloved Blues seem to have a few links with the Scottish, our manager Alex McLeish is from Barrhead and we have Barry Ferguson, James McFadden and unfortunately Garry O’Conner who all hail from the northern side of Hadrian's Wall.

Our ground is called St. Andrews and we have "Keep Right on to the End of the Road", as our club anthem which was wrote by Sir Henry Lauder (4 August 1870 – 26 February 1950), known professionally as Harry Lauder, who was a Scottish entertainer, described by Sir Winston Churchill as "Scotland's greatest ever ambassador. We shall be victorious, it is written in the stars! {Now we will get stuffed!}

Back to the saint bloke though…St Andrew was one of Jesus' twelve disciples and he lived and worked as a fisherman in Galilee. He was the brother of Peter, another of Christ's disciples.

After Christ's crucifixion, one version of the legend is that Andrew went to Greece to preach Christianity, where he was crucified for his beliefs at a place called Patras, on a cross in the form of an X. However, the X-shaped cross played little part in early legends of St. Andrew and indeed in early versions of the tale, Andrew was nailed to an olive tree, not a cross.

How he ended up being the patron saint is unclear, there are several differing stories:-

300 years after his death the Emperor Constantine decided to remove the Saint's bones to Constantinople, but according to legend the monk St. Regulus was warned in a dream by an angel, who told him to remove as many bones as he could to the "ends of the earth" to keep them safe.

As far as the Greeks and Romans were concerned, Scotland was as near to the world's end as you could get, so some of his remains were taken to Scotland. St. Regulus brought the relics ashore at what is now St Andrews (some versions say he was shipwrecked there) and a chapel was built to house the bones, followed in 1160 by a cathedral. St Andrews was the religious capital of Scotland and an important place of pilgrimage.
A more plausible version of how the Saint's bones found their way to Scotland is that Acca, Bishop of Hexham, who was a renowned collector of religious relics, actually bought the bones quite legitimately and took them there in 733 AD.

Unfortunately the bones have now disappeared, probably destroyed during the Reformation when anything connected with "Catholic idolatry" was removed without trace. The site where the relics had been is now marked by a plaque in the ruins of the Cathedral in St Andrews.

Not all of St. Andrew's bones were originally sent to Scotland, the rest were stolen from Constantinople by the Crusaders in around 1204 and taken to Amalfi in Italy, from where some fragments were sent in 1879 to Scotland, and in 1969 Pope Paul VI gave some further relics to the Catholic church in Scotland during a visit there and these are now displayed in a reliquary in St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Edinburgh, if you're into that kind of thing.

Now if you know anything about the Scots you would think the celebrations of their patron saint would be on the same scale as those of Ireland's - St Patrick, but somehow they aren't. St. Andrew's Day used to be a very popular feast day in Scotland. It was a common custom for farm workers and labourers to go "St. Andra'ing". They would catch rabbits and hares and later on in the day would feast and drink. But a recent survey showed many Scots didn't know when St Andrew's day was.

To address this terrible sacrilege there have been debates on and off for some time about making St. Andrew's Day a public holiday in Scotland, that way it would be easier to remember, but so far no success. However the day is celebrated by those Scots at home and abroad who know when it is wearing traditional costume - kilts, drinking traditional Scottish drink - Scotch whisky, eating traditional Scottish food - neeps and tatties, listening to traditional Scottish music - the bagpipes and enjoying traditional Scottish dancing - celidhs.

Many Scots will also wear a thistle on this day. The thistle is widely regarded as the emblem of Scotland. There are several varieties of thistle, most of them common weeds throughout the British Isles and nearly all characterized by extreme prickliness. The legend of how the thistle came to be adopted by the Scots tells of how a group of Scots were sleeping in a field when a group of marauding Vikings crept up to attack. Fortunately one of the Vikings stood on a thistle, whose prickles penetrated through to his foot and made him yell with pain, waking the sleeping Scots who were able to fight off their attackers. So, from that day, or so the story goes, the thistle has been adopted as Scotland's national emblem.
So to celebrate St. Andrews day we are going to make 2 dishes that have become synonymous with Scotland, no not haggis or neeps and tatties because they are truly awful but a warming Scotch Broth and my favorite, the Scotch Egg.

SCOTCH BROTH
Serves 4

Ingredients1oz Pearl Barley
8oz Stewing Beef, fat removed
2pts Water
3oz Leeks, sliced
8oz Carrot, diced
8oz Swede, diced
Salt and Pepper
2oz Cabbage, shredded

MethodPlace the barley in a pan of cold water; bring to the boil then drain.
Return the barley to the pan together with the diced beef and 1.2L/2pts of water. Bring to the boil, skim the surface, and then simmer for 1 hour.

Add the leeks, carrot, Swede and plenty of salt and pepper and continue to simmer for a further hour. After this time, add the cabbage and cook for a further 20 minutes. Serve hot.


SCOTCH EGGS
Makes 4

Ingredients4 Hard Boiled Eggs, cooled
1oz Plain Flour
Salt and Pepper
8oz Pork Sausage Meat
1 Egg, beaten
2oz Dried Breadcrumbs
Vegetable Oil for deep frying

Method Shell the hard boiled eggs and coat each in the flour which has been seasoned with salt and pepper. Preheat the deep fryer to 170C, 340F.

Divide the sausage meat into 4 equal portions and flatten out each portion roughly into a circle large enough to surround an egg on a floured board.

Place 1 egg in the centre of each sausage meat circle and carefully mould the sausage meat around each egg, pressing the edges firmly together to seal.

Place the beaten egg in one bowl and the breadcrumbs on a plate, then dip each covered egg firstly in the beaten egg and then in the breadcrumbs to thoroughly coat all over.

Fry the coated eggs for 7-9 minutes until golden brown and crisp.
Drain well on kitchen paper, cool and refrigerate until ready to serve.

To serve at parties or buffets, double, triple or quadruple the ingredients then just before serving cut each egg into quarters for bite sized potions.

AND FINALLY… Do you know the first people in the UK to have double glazing were the Scots?...It was so their kids couldn't hear the ice cream vans.

Keep Right On
CHEF GILLIGAN