mexico

I swear I’m onto something with this idea: Scottish-Mexican fusion cookery. Hear me out.

It started on the last day of our trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2012 when, in an effort to use up our self-catering supplies, JTA suggested (he later claimed this should have been taken as a joke) haggis tacos. Ruth and I ate a whole bunch of them and they were great.

A hand holds a crisp taco containing haggis, mashed potato, rocket, and a blob of sour cream. In the background, JTA can be seen eating his dinner in a more-conventional way: off a plate. There are glasses of wine on the table. — It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty good: if I did it again, it’d be haggis and clapshot with a thick whisky sauce… all in a taco.

In Scotland last week (while I wasn’t climbing mountains and thinking of my father), Ruth and I came up with our second bit of Scottish-Mexican fusion food: tattie scone quesadillas. Just sandwich some cheese and anything else you like between tattie scones and gently fry in butter.

A pair of tattie scone quesadillas sizzling in a pan. — These were delicious as they were, but I think there’d be mileage in slicing them into thin fingers and serving them with a moderately spicy salsa, as a dip.

We’re definitely onto something. But what to try next? How about…

Bean chilli stovies?
Arroz con pollo on oatcakes?
Carnitas and refried beans in a bridie?
Huevos rancheros with lorne sausage sandwiched between the tortilla and the eggs?
Kedgeree fajitas? (I’m not entirely convinced by this one)
Rumbledethumps con carne?
Caldo de leekie: cock-a-leekie soup but with mexican rice dumped in after cooking, caldo-de-pollo-style?
Something like a chimichanga but battered before it’s fried? (my god, that sounds like an instant heart attack)

This week included the Cinco de Mayo, the anniversary of the overwhelming (and surprising) Mexican victory over a superior French force at the Battle of Puebla, but used mostly as an excuse for Mexican expatriates and non-Mexicans to celebrate Mexican culture. And food. Mostly food.

To mark the occasion, one of my favourite restaurants, The Mission in Oxford, announced that they were giving away free beer to customers, and your next burrito free if you came along dressed as a Mexican. The Mission already wins my favour by making the best burritos I’ve ever tasted; giving me an excuse to dress up and get free beer and more burritos is just a bonus!

We’d had a long, long day already. After work, I’d mostly been doing administrative work with helpline Oxford Friend, with whom I’m a volunteer. Ruth and JTA had perhaps been even busier, as they’d spent the evening working on the Yes to AV telephone lines, making sure that everybody who had pledged to vote was out and doing so. We all really felt like we’d earned our burritos. So we donned our ponchos and (in my case) my sombrero, and went to The Mission.

I learned two things:

The Mission remains awesome. If you’re looking for food in Oxford, I highly recommend them. And no, they’re not paying me to say this.
It’s really, really hard to cycle while wearing a sombrero. Those things catch the wind like nothing else, and unless you enjoy riding along with what feels like a kite tied to your neck (and that’s if you’re lucky enough that the neck string catches you; otherwise your hat flies off into traffic and you have to run after it, yelling and screaming), cycling while wearing one is not a good combination.

We brought home a takeaway for Paul, too, which I suspect was his second burrito of the day. Seriously: nobody celebrates Cinco de Mayo like Paul does.

Tag: mexico

Scottish-Mexican Fusion Cookery

Cinco de Mayo