Since we're talking food, we had to share this with you from the Stone Mountain Highland Games this past weekend.
In my "Second Clan", MacMillan, I have three sept names: Bell, Baxter, and Brown. Sir Robert Bell loves to point out that I have quite a bit of MacMillan blood even though I carry the "Calhoun" name. We love Sir Robert and Lady Susan, by the way, and didn't get to spend any time with them as is the way of a busy event like Stone Mountain, but we'll catch up.
"Brown" is "Broon" in the Scots vernacular (if you're American like me, be sure you give an extra "rr" sound to "Broon") .
I'd always loved cartoons and was naturally attracted to "The Broons" and "Oor Wullie" (Our Willie) when I'd seen the books here in the States from our freinds Jim, Sheila, and Kathy's Scots Corner. Another Colquhoun friend, Valerie, editor of the Scottish Banner, told us about "Maw Broon's Cookbook" which she said was the best selling cookbook in Scotland!
If this were just another cookbook it really wouldn't be worth a mention on a blog page, even tho' it's a cartoon character who bears the name of my Great' gt' Grandmaw Broon. The wonderful thing about this book is that it's printed up like your grandmaw's cookbook complete with coffee stains and grandchildren's drawings on the pages.
(the juggler you see at the bottom right of the page is on several pages and can be seen "juggling" as you flip the pages of the book. Drawn by one of Maw Broon's grandchildren when she wasn't looking!)
Valerie told us that she had one customer come up and request a "clean" copy of the book who didn't realize that the whole appeal was the home-made, taped together, hand-written in, and generally weather-beaten look of the book. In fact, if you look at the cut outs and ads in the book, it looks like it was put together in the 1940's-50's. The "weathered" tape is a particularly nice touch to a "Boomer" whose Mom lived through WWII.
We make homemade Shortbread to pass out at the Colquhoun tent. One thing we haven't mastered yet is the Empire Biscuits:
It's basically two pieces of shortbread with jam in the middle and icing on top with a piece of cherry.
Empire Biscuit made by Georgia Daughters of the British Empire devoured shortly after picture was taken.
Each year these are sold by Daughters Of The British Empire at the Stone Mountain Games. I've never noticed this before, but the Georgia Chapter doesn't seem to have its own website.
The GA Chapter of the DBE are out there every year, and they have Empire Biscuits that my Grt' g' GrandMaw Broon would have been proud of because they're wonderful!
When we pass out our homemade shortbread at the Colquhoun tent we use this tin:
A few people who collect tins have told me this one is very desirable. I look each Christmas when the decorative tins usually come out to see if I can find anything like it.
The Imperial War Museum in London holds Sir Iain's war diary from World War I. Many stories about Sir Iain during WWI are usually situated during his time at Ypres. He was also at the Somme.
Malcolm Brown had access to Sir Iain's diary. Add to this his knowledge of the events happening around the Scots Guards' position and Mr. Brown creates a fascinating description of what our past Chief went through during wartime. Sir Iain's first impression of a tank was that it was a "Land Creeper".
Another segment of Sir Iain's diary was used here:
I have Sir Iain's diary, or part of it, on microfilm, written in his own hand. It's very hard to read. It has some photographs inserted in the diary which I think have never been made public. Most appear to be brother soldiers and scenes Sir Iain encountered during the war. One is obviously of himself but not labeled. I'd like to see these made available one day as we approach the 100th anniversary of of the world changing events the our Chief lived through.
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