Let's Eat

A “travel blog” is difficult to generate when I’m not traveling (and the two day visit to our timeshare on the Oregon coast doesn’t really count).  We have now, though, paid for our spring tickets to Scotland and reserved our main B&B.  I have a list of golf courses I want to visit and some new-to-us historic sites to visit.  [Would “new historic sites” be an oxymoron?]  With the planning for our spring trip already begun, I feel ready to tackle a couple of travel topics in this blog entry.  

Gastro Pubs

From one extreme (Anderson’s Restaurant in Boat of Garten, Scotland)

to the other (a roadside stand near Perth, Scotland)

and this entry is about those places in between (Kippin Inn near Stirling, Scotland).

The vision of the local tavern/bar as a dark, dank, smelly, smoke-filled, beer-splattered  drinking establishment frequented by society’s dregs and losers is a B-grade film noir scene even in America.  (Bar in Ballyferriter, Ireland.)

Oh, you can find those bars about in the inner cities, but local taverns have never really been like that, at least not in my 66 years.  In Scotland, though, local pubs have been a breed different from even the American local tavern.  When we began touring Scotland in 2000 we discovered that the village pub was closer to our cafe or greasy spoon than to any local tavern.  The pub was truly a public house--a place for people to meet, share a pint, a dram, or a coffee, read the tabloids, tell stories, and catch up on the local gossip.  The pub was also a place for a family to have a meal out--kids needed to be out of the pub by eight or ten in the evening (depending upon local laws).  That really brings me to the crux of this discussion: pub food in Scotland, England, and Wales.  (Dreel Tavern, Anstruther, Scotland.)

On all our trips to the UK we’ve eaten predominately in three types of places: tea rooms, restaurants, and pubs, with pubs being the majority of our main meals.  Especially during the first few years our lunches or dinners were in pubs, bars or taverns that in the main were drinking places.  Food was secondary.  “Pub grub” consisted of standard pre-packaged fare with dishes like fish and chips (greasy), shepherd’s pie, steak and ale pie (soggy), bangers and mash, lasagna (tasteless), and Sunday joint or roast on almost every menu.  Early in our travels, though, we began to notice an improvement in bar meals including more freshly made specials and the Gastropub concept (the idea of a pub as a restaurant) became more prevalent.  (Poacher’s Rest, Ellon, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.)

It’s getting far more difficult to distinguish between a pub which cares about its food (the gastropub) and a restaurant which cares for its drinkers (Should we call it an inbiberaunt?), but it has definitely made a difference in the meals we can order.  Fresh roasted chicken, curries in great variety, specialty steaks and chops, gourmet sandwiches, as well as better prepared versions of all the pub favorites.  Several of our favorite “pubs” have or are developing reputations for great food to go along with their real ales, specialty drinks, and atmosphere,  The oldest licensed public house in Scotland, The Clachan Inn [www.clachaninndrymen.co.uk/] in Drymen, was established in 1734 and today offers only the traditional pub menu until you look on the “Specials” board.  The range of specials of chicken and roasts effectively doubles the menu.  Craik is good with locals and tourists and the food is superb.  While The Clachan Inn interior is white, light and airy, the atmosphere at one of our other favorite pubs is dark and heavy, but the beers brewed on premises at the Moulin Inn [www.moulininn.co.uk/] just outside Pitlochry at the edge of the Highlands easily brighten the atmosphere.  The local golfer who suggested we visit the Moulin Inn said it was “the most English pub in Scotland.”  We never did quite figure out what that meant, but we will acknowledge that Moulin Inn (est. 1695) fits the stereotype of a real village pub.  With a peat or coal fire in the fireplace of the small bar area and dark wood booths the length of pub, Moulin is almost always crowded.  Plenty are there to drink the five Moulin ales, but most are visiting for the food.  The menu (a great souvenir) is anything but typical. Favorites include  Skye mussels, Scotsman’s Bunnet (batter pudding filled with Highland meat and veg stew) Game Casserole McDuff, Vrackie Grostel (sauted potatoes and bacon topped with a fried egg, an anytime breakfast), and a specials board reflecting seasonal offerings.  Have a brew while you wait for a table.  In southern Wales it was the golf pro at Pyle and Kenfig GC who put us onto the Prince of Wales Pub [www.kenfig.org.uk/history/prince-kenfig] nearby, named originally Ty Newydd Tavern (New House).  [You will find Prince of Wales pubs or restaurants throughout Wales, England, and Scotland.  As far as I know they aren’t connected; it just seems like a popular name.]  This supposedly very haunted 15th century hotel has a large pub room filled with heavy tables and chairs and flanked by smaller booths or snugs--picturesque comes to mind.  The pub is a drinker’s haven, but the food is not of the pre-packaged variety.  All the meat, produce, and dairy is local--including whatever was shot, trapped, or brought in that day.  A specialty is Braised Welsh Faggots (similar to Scottish haggis, but much richer, served with onion gravy and chips or mash).  The food and atmosphere is good enough to leave us saying, “I ain’t ‘fraid of no ghosts.”  (Black Boy, Caernarfon, Wales.)

Besides the afore mentioned gastropubs, we have others to recommend. In England we’d suggest The George Inn in Lacock near Bath (be sure to get a close look at the dog wheel spit turner), the Hest Bank Inn near Lancaster, the Hope and Anchor in Port of Carlisle, and the Kings Arms in Bowness-on-Solway.  In Wales try the Black Boy in Caernarfon, and King Arthur’s Hotel in Reynoldston in south Wales.  In Scotland our favorites include Poacher’s Rest just outside Ellon near Aberdeen, the Port Bar at the Lake of Menteith Hotel  in the Port of Menteith, Perthshire, The Kimberley Inn in Findhorn on the Morayshire coast, and The Dreel Tavern in Anstruther.

If you work hard you can still find typical fatty, poorly prepared pre-packaged “pub grub,” but whether called Gastropub or Inbiberaunt, the pub food in Scotland has definitely taken a turn for the better.   

Would You Like Music with Your Meal?

Restaurants make choices about the music (or lack of music) to go with the diner’s meal.  Too often they make poor choices.  Just outside of Tralee, Ireland, is the well known Oyster Tavern.  Highly rated in the tourist guide books, the Oyster Tavern is a lovely, high class bar and restaurant, all except their choice of music.  When we visited the ambience cried for light jazz or classical, instead of the Christmas tunes we got in late May.  Was this someone’s idea of a joke?  Seafood chowder and Jingle Bells don’t mix in May.  We’ve found this same lack of attention to the tunes playing in other restaurants.  Our B&B in Cirencester, England, recommended Jessie’s as the best meal in town.  We walked down to town early to book a table and returned at 7:00 for our reservation.  The dinner was superb (although slightly dainty and expensive for my taste) and the decor classy and comfortable.  (Jessie’s, Cirencester, England.)

The music, though, was abominable!  Again in a setting appropriate to light jazz, classical, or mellow ballads, the well-placed (right above our heads) speakers blared out rap and gangsta-rap.  Even the scallops on my plate were screaming to get back in their shells.  We cannot fathom the thinking of a restaurant owner who would spend a fortune to build a fine-dining establishment just to ruin it with bad music.    

A Season of Rituals and Traditions

Here we are in the midst of the Holiday Season.  Decorations have been put up in Macy’s since before Halloween.  We visited the Christmas Department in Jenners (Scotland’s Herrods) in Edinburgh on October 11.  

Magazines are brim full of new recipes to try for your Christmas feast.  Stores have taken down the pre-Christmas sale signs in order to be ready for the after-Christmas sale signs.

The news recently announced a new phenomenon: Pre-Christmas returns.  We, too, are getting into the spirit of the season--Anne has the house decorated inside, I’ve put up our small display of porch and patio lights, the Holiday tunes have been playing since we got back from Scotland in the middle of October (I do start playing my Holiday CDs early).  In all this decorating and frenzied buying or ordering (even in a weak economy) many of the original meanings of the seasonal celebrations get overlooked or have been forgotten altogether.  In this Holiday entry I plan to share some of the most ancient meanings, rituals, and traditions of our holiday celebrations.

Our most ancient celebrations center around the Winter Solstice, that time when because of the Earth’s tilt on its axis, our hemisphere receives the least direct light from the sun.  [Even though the sun is actually closer to the Earth at this time of year. Go figure.]  

(My photo of the 1979 solar eclipse in Oregon, published in Sky and Telescope Magazine.)

Solstice comes from the Latin sol stetit or literally “sun stands still” referring to the slow movement of the sun in the sky.  This year the solstice moment occurs on December 22 at 5:30 a.m. GMT.  That means that daylight in our hemisphere is the shortest and the sun has the lowest arc in the sky.  For us the Winter Solstice means that the sun is directly overhead at noon on the Tropic of Cancer (Sao Paulo, Brazil, southern Madagascar, and Brisbane, Australia), but it is only half way to the zenith at noon here in Oregon.  

One of the earliest recorded celebrations of the Winter Solstice, as reported in 4000 Years of Christmas, was by the  Mesopotamians who held a twelve day festival to help God Murduk tame the monsters of chaos for one more year.  The similarity to other Twelve Days of Christmas traditions should not be missed. Even older, but not confirmed, Neolithic tribes, the first farmers, ten-thousand years ago celebrated the solstice in order to overcome fear that the failing sunlight would not return.  In Ireland, in about 4000 BCE, the acre across tomb called New Grange in the Boyne Valley was built.

The original Irish Gaelic name meant “cave of the sun.”  For about a week before and a week after the Winter Solstice the light from the rising sun passes through a narrow slot in the tomb entrance and illuminates special spiral carvings on the wall eighty feet deep in the cairn.  

On Mainland (the main island), Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland, is a similar chambered cairn called Maeshowe.  It too is aligned so that the rising solstice sun shines into the tomb and lights up the main chamber.  

During this time of year many cities will have concerts or performances dedicated to the Return of the Light.  The Christmas Revels is a play performed each year in twelve cities which tells the Return of the Light story as seen in as diverse cultures as British, Celtic, Scandinavian, French, and American (more information at www.revels.org).  

      Several of our traditions of Christmas are rooted in very ancient rituals.  For instance, the tradition of the Christmas feast can be traced back to the ancient Chinese celebration Dong Zhi, the Arrival of Winter.  The Chinese celebrated the solstice with a day of feasting on the finest pork, chicken, beef, and mutton [Can mutton really be good?], but I don’t know if that came with egg rolls or not.  

(It's not a Christmas Feast, but this seafood feast was one order of the regular seafood platter at a hotel pub in Gairloch, Scotland.  No, I didn't eat the whole thing, but all the diners applauded when it was brought to my table.)

       In Russia one Winter Solstice ritual involved a young girl, two candles, and two mirrors.  The girl was placed in a dark room with only the two candles for light.  She was to seek the seventh reflection in the mirrors so that she could then see what the coming year would hold for the village.  Medieval Britain held a winter festival called “Apple Wassailing.”  It started with a blessing of the apple trees with song, dance, and decorations, and ended with the drinking of wassail, a combination of hot wine, spices and fruit shared out of a large bowl.  

Also in Medieval Britain was the Wiccan (witch) ritual of “Sunreturn,” which begins at Yule (the longest day) and ends when the sun return is noticeable on about the twelfth day.

The traditions we will celebrate this Christmas often can be traced back to ancient beginnings.  The Yule Log, such as we view on Oregon PBS broadcast from Timberline Lodge on Christmas Eve, is actually of Scandinavian origin.  From the Norse jol, Winter Solstice Festival, the log was supposed to burn from sundown to sunup on the longest night.  Today we use candles for the same purpose.  

Decorating with evergreens, especially holly, goes back to ancient beliefs that view evergreens as symbols of rebirth and life.  Holly was particularly treasured around doors, windows, and hearths because the prickliness was thought to ward off or snag evil spirits before they could enter the house.  

The ultimate evergreen ritual is the Christmas tree which adorns most homes and almost all our commercial establishments.  The oldest reference if from the Wiccan Sunreturn where they would decorated evergreen trees with edible goodies (apples, nuts, grain, roots, berries) for the wild creatures of the forest.  The earliest mention of indoor trees comes from the parlors of Strausbourgh, Germany in 1605. German tradition from the 17th century used candles on the trees glued with wax or pinned at the ends of branches.  Later they used candle holders with clips (introduced in 1890) and lanterns. Britain’s first tree was brought to Balmoral Castle in 1840 by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria.  

(Balmoral Castle, Scotland.)

The traditional Christmas tree came to the United States through German immigrants in the 1830s and 40s--in fact, the first tree in Virginia was set up in 1842.  The first advertisements for a Christmas tree and decorations appeared in 1843.  By 1880 the New York Tribune estimated there were 200,000 Christmas trees in New York City alone.  Twenty years later one-in-five families in the US had a tree.   Early decorated trees lighted with candles were responsible for many fires and much holiday tragedy. The first string of electric Christmas lights made up of 80 hand-blown globes was made in 1882 for an Edison Co. VP.  In 1895 President Grover Cleveland had electric lights on the White House tree.  The modern era was upon us.

It’s little recognized that Christmas trees were responsible for one of America’s great fortunes.  F.W. Woolworth bought some glass ornaments from an importer in 1889 and they sold out in two days.  In 1890 he went to Germany and ordered 1500 gross of glass ornaments, almost corning the market.

An old English tradition of giving small gifts or “gimcracks” (defined by The Modern American Christmas as “flimsy geegaws, tawdry and gaudy ephemeral, soon relegated to the limbo of the attic or ash heap; and characterized as low priced, poor quality, and of no useful purpose like the 12th set of cufflinks from Aunt Mary”) was changed in 1840 when a company started producing cards which could be exchanged instead of gimcracks. 

The idea caught on and one study in 1911 showed that more cards were sent than the small gifts.  After an aggressive campaign by the Greeting Card Association in America from 1917 to 1927 sales of Christmas cards increased five fold--from $10 million to $55 million.  Sales of Christmas cards actually increased during the Depression years.

        The newest wrinkle in Christmas cards has been the proliferation over the past twenty years of the Holiday Letter (which people either love or hate) and now the Holiday email (which the greeting card companies definitely hate).  In self-defense I make no mention of the Holiday Blog Entry--Opps, I mentioned it.

       This year as you sing of Santa Coming to Town Jingling Bells all the way in a Sleigh Ride strung with Silver Bells in a Winter Wonderland, remember the ancient beginnings of our Holiday Season celebrations, the rituals that came before ours, and the traditions we continue to celebrate.  On Thursday, December 22, the Winter Solstice, burn your Yule Log or light your candles to help bring back the Light.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for a Great New Year from Bob and Anne Jones

A Dying Fascination, Part 3

In the two previous entries to A Dying Fascination I outlined some of the art found in graveyards mostly in Scotland (although some from England)--the interplay of light and vegetation upon the stones and carvings symbolizing mortality and immortality.  One final category of the carvers’ art includes the symbols we find on grave stones relating to trades or occupations.  Many stones have carved items that we would recognize as “tools of the trade.”  Because tradesmen took pride in their work, an attribute not often seen in today’s job market, it is natural for them to want symbols of their trade to have a prominent place on their monuments.  Once you understand what to look for, the images of trade are almost as common in the kirkyards as the images relating to mortality and immortality.  We’ve found symbols of several different trades:

The hammer may relate to either a Wright (woodworker) or a Cooper, but the other tools in this example in the Muthill Old Church identifies it as definitely relating to woodworking.

The Weaver or Waulkmiller’s symbols are very noticeable (the loom), such as this one in the graveyard of the Meigle Parish Church, Perthshire.

Shears and irons are the tools of the Tailor (also Meigle).  

Peels and scuffle, a long-handled tool with a cloth on the end to clean out the oven and the wheat bale, help to identify a Baker’s grave at the Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling.

Many stones identify the interred as a Farmer as in these examples from Muthill and St Madeos.

The Mason is easily identified by the compass and square, the recognizable symbol of the Freemasons, on this grave slab at St Peter’s Kirk near Duffus.

Merchants are often represented by items such as pen and book, compass, particular items that were their trade, and most commonly by a ‘4’ sign (sometimes in the reverse position). These examples are from Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling and Muthill Old Church.

Military (soldiers and sailors) are identified by special carvings, such as the carving of a ship for a sailor (Dull Church)

or the regalia of the soldier, as detailed in this carving in the St Andrews Cathedral cemetery. 

Though the carving may not be very artistic, the War Memorials often seen in villages or, in the case of Nethy Bridge on its golf course (Abernethy GC), are the ultimate symbol of departed’s occupation. 

Sometimes you can find very special Portrait Memorials recognizing a person’s trade.  Two such examples are the memorials to famous golfers Tom Morris (Young and Old) 

and the memorial of golfer and club-maker Allan Robertson, both found appropriately enough in the St Andrews Cathedral graveyard. 

By no means do these three blog entries exhaust the exploration of art to be found in Scottish and English church or kirk graveyards or cemeteries.  For example, there are some wonderfully carved examples of Heraldic Devices, such as this one example from the Orphir Round Church cemetery (Orkney). 

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Next time you are traveling, whether in the UK, Europe or even in the States, take a look at the older cemeteries.  You might just find an interesting art exhibit.

One final image.  Fall in the graveyard (Mortlach Church).

A Dying Fascination, Part 2

Where do we go to find art?  In Scotland, the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh has a wonderful display of paintings and sculptures.  Anne and I find natural art on almost every golf course we visit--trees, flowers, the art of design.  Cemeteries, church or kirk graveyards, bone factories seem to be one of the least likely spots to go chasing art, but  there is much that is artistic in the graveyards, especially in Scotland.  I’ve already shown examples in the last entry of one artsy aspect of the graveyards: the patterns of stones and light. The next aspect to examine is the art on the stones themselves, the carvings.  The weathered stone carvings catch attention as we wander among the graves, but the meaning behind the symbols gives substance to the stone mason’s art.

The first category of carvings to explore are the Emblems of Mortality (Willsher, p. 38).  Here is where I’ll go back to my misconceptions about the skull and crossbones.  Instead of symbols referring to death by plague, the gruesome image simply says that this person is dead, as we all shall be.  It is one of the symbols of mortality; symbols which remind us that death is a natural part of life which will come to us all as it has with this soul.  Skull and crossbones is not the only image to remind us of our mortality, we’ve seen several others in the kirkyards of Scotland and England.  Here are some examples of the carvings categorized as emblems of mortality:

Grave Digger’s Tools, such as the spade and turf-cutter (Muthill Old Church and Tower graves, Perthshire);

the Deid Bell rung to give notice of funerals seen in these twin grave slabs at the ruined St Peter’s Kirk near Duffus, Morayshire; 

Winged Skulls are usually found on tombs from the 17th century, but this elaborate winged skull (University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, England) is obviously much later;

the Skeleton, the ultimate image of the death that comes to us all, like the one Anne sat next to in the Elgin Cathedral;

the Hourglass which indicates time is passing or, as seen in this grave slab in St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney, has past; 

Weapons of Death, such as the dart or arrow (St Magnus Cathedral); 

and the Coffin as our final resting place (Elgin Cathedral, Elgin, Morayshire). This slab like many others displays multiple symbols of mortality; in this example, skull and crossbones, grave-digger tools, deid bell, hour glass, and the coffin. 

A second category of carvings on the stones refer to Emblems of Immortality (Willsher, p. 42).  These images seem to be less prevalent than mortality images, as if the living were more concerned with the inevitability of their own death rather than life forever after for the departed.  One image of immortality that is quite easy to find is the Winged Soul or Cherub, as opposed to the less common winged skull. The first example is from Muthill Old Church and the second more elaborate carving is from Balfron Village Church, Scotland.

The other symbol often found is the Scallop Shell, a common object carried by pilgrims, which could also just be pretty decoration.  At the Burford Parish Church, England, we found this unusual combination of mortality symbol (the skull) and the immortality symbol (the scallop shell).

It is more common to see the kind of scallop shell decoration we saw in the Dull Churchyard.

Other symbols of immortality that we’ve found include:

The Angus Dei, or figure of a lamb bearing a cross or flag which is said to represent the Passion of Christ, and the Phoenix, the mythical bird which rises out of its own ashes, which is a strong image of rebirth (both seen in the churchyard of the St Columba’s Episcopal Church in Crieff, Perthshire).

The Dove which is the symbol of the Holy Spirit was very popular in the 19th century.  It is unusual, though, to find a carving of a dove on a memorial (Kinfauns graveyard near Perth).

The Wheel-head or Celtic Cross representing the eternal circle of life is both the symbol of hope and very artistic. This nice example is in the graveyard at St Peter’s Church in Haysham, England, near Lancaster.  

The third category of carvings to discuss in this entry are carvings of symbolic scenes, especially Biblical scenes.  Betty Willsher in Understanding Scottish Graveyards (2006) mentions three specific scenes to look for--Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, and the Sower and the Reaper.  In all the graveyards we searched on this trip (and looking at photos from past trips) I could find only two Adam and Eve stones, one at the Church of the Holy Rude cemetery in Stirling and the other at St Madeos Church near Perth.  

Other examples of this story and other scenes will have to wait for future trips.  

There is one more category of grave stone carving to explore, but that will have to wait for the next entry.