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December 8, 2015

Do you hunger for your granny’s Singin’ Hinnies or pine for Edinburgh Raspberry Fog?

If so, you will have an appetite for the book You’ll Have Had Yer Tea? Treasured Tastes of Scotland.

Available free of charge from VisitScotland Information Centres from today, the book contains more than 40 traditional recipes submitted by members of the public from every corner of the country.

It’s the perfect riposte to every ill-informed doofus who insists on waffling about Scotland being the spiritual home of the munchie box.

Shirley Spear launches You'll Have Had Yer Tea.
Shirley Spear launches You’ll Have Had Yer Tea.

Childhood memories

Each recipe is accompanied by a special memory giving the background to each dish. Whether it’s a childhood recollection of helping mum bake shortbread or frying the catch of the day after a fishing trip with granddad, each recipe is brought to life by the story behind it.

The book also highlights regional specialities and the food and drink experiences unique to certain locations.

Should you ever find yourself moaning that supermarkets are destroying regional diversity then You’ll Have Had Yer Tea is the culinary antidote.

Home cooking skills

The book’s foreword is from Shirley Spear, the woman who put Skye’s Three Chimneys on the global foodie map.

She writes: ‘The idea behind this recipe book was to create a legacy for the Year of Food & Drink 2015, reminding ourselves of our local Scottish roots, our home-cooking skills and memories of days gone by when family food, cooking and eating together were more prevalent. I would love to see more of this in future.’

Obviously, here at the 5pm Dining blog, we’re all about eating out in Scotland’s excellent and expanding restaurant scene.

Eat with family and friends

However, we’re also firm fans of preparing food at home for friends and family. It is a habit in decline.

New research commissioned by VisitScotland shows that more than half of families in Scotland do not sit down for meals together on a daily basis.

The research, carried out by Scotpulse, showed that only 47 per cent of people in households of two or more sit down as a family to eat dinner every day, while 8 per cent said they would never do this and 9 per cent had not done this in the last week.

Seventeen per cent of respondents will sit down as a family to eat four-five times a week, while the remaining 13 per cent do this two-three times a week.

The survey of more than 800 adults also revealed the following:

Participants with children in household are less likely to sit down every day to eat dinner (34 per cent vs 51 per cent of those with no children).

Over 55s (69 per cent)  are more likely than average (47 per cent) to sit down as a family every day compared to 35 per cent of under 35s (least likely to sit down together every day).

Culinary inspiration

If we cook at all then most of us cook from a fairly limited repertoire of tried and trusted favourites. If you would like to explore some new recipes with which to expand your repertoire then You’ll Have Had Yer Tea? Treasured Tastes of Scotland offers plenty of inspiration.

The book is available in VisitScotland Information Centres and online here.