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From The Desk Of Alasdair Roberts: Tattie Scones

Alasdair Roberts’ songs are difficult to digest. Like a large pill you can’t quite swallow, that lodges toward the back of the throat, they are dense, layered, poetic ballads coupled with a forcefully picked acoustic guitar, abrasively fragile vocals and a thick Scottish accent. His new self-titled album is not the kind of thing you put on while washing dishes. But it’s the kind of album you go back to again and again, trying to parse the lyrics, trying to understand why these songs grate at the base of your spine. Roberts will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature on him.

TattieScones

Roberts: I believe that tattie scones, or “potato scones,” are a uniquely Scottish foodstuff, although Ireland has the equivalent “potato farl,” which is also a very good product, but not quite the same thing. I consume tattie scones fairly regularly, normally as part of a cooked breakfast. I find that they go very well with eggs, particularly scrambled eggs. I’d really like to use tattie scones as a starting point to discuss the cuisine of Scotland more generally—haggis, stovies, Arbroath smokies, cullen skink, butteries, cranachan, whisky, Irn-Bru, Tunnock’s teacakes and so on. These are all culinary delights with which I imagine many of MAGNET’s readers are probably unfamiliar, and it is time for that state of affairs to change.

Video after the jump.