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April 16, 2009

As St George’s Day looms on the horizon, The Times has come up with one writer’s top ten quintessentially English foods.

It’s a neat but tricky idea. Here is my Scottish equivalent.

1) It is blindingly obvious but it has to be haggis. I don’t think it’s the best thing that Scotland does but it is the first food that anyone from another country associates with us.

2) Langoustines if you want to splash out. Squat lobster tails if money is tight.

3) Stovies: the comfort food of the gods.

4) Marmalade. A sweet way to ease into the day when spread on breakfast toast or a fantastic way to finish a meal in the form of the Three Chimney’s hot marmalade pudding.

5) Smoked salmon but not the cold, wet stuff. Give me the firmer texture and taste of hot roast salmon anyday.

6) Bridies. Scotland’s answer to the Cornish pastie.

7) Hill-reared lamb. I’m not going to pretend that I can taste the heather but it still makes for a corking roast lunch on a lazy Sunday.

8) Arbroath smokies. Too much for me at breakfast time but hard to resist in a kedgeree.

9) Whisky. Not strictly a food but an important part of a balanced diet nonetheless.

10) Ecclefechan tart. A pudding that sounds like a swear word.