Forwarded from the ever colorful Maisie :-) This is a very interesting site that covers the diet of Scotland as far back as the 1500s to the present day. More research is needed, but it seems that the Scot had a better diet than the Irish, even at the time of the Highland Clearances and most certainly during the Irish Famine. There seemed to be less reliance on the potato and more on grains...purritch (porridge) comes to mind. My Edinburgh-born but Motherwell, Lanarkshire reared grandfather peculiarly (to me) would "store" his porridge in a drawer and divvy it up in squares to eat. His brother preferred to eat his porridge by dipping a big spoonful into a glass of milk. He also liked to drink his tea out of a saucer, much to my mother's disgust! Neither brother was a "yahoo," they just had certain notions about how they liked to eat their purritch! I can now record such idiosyncrasies in my Family Tree genealogy notes as the characters involved are no longer of this world. <http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/scottishfood>http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/scottishfood