Traditional beverages

• Irish whiskey

Alcoholic

• Whiskey such as Jameson Irish Whiskey, Paddy Whiskey and Bushmills

• Porter (beer) or Stout such as Guinness, Murphy's Irish Stout and Beamish stout

• Irish red ale such as Smithwick's (sold outside Ireland as Kilkenny)

• Lager such as Harp Lager

• Irish coffee - made with black coffee, whiskey and whipped cream

• Irish cream such as Baileys

• Irish mist

• Mead

• Poitín - a very strong whiskey made from potatoes

• Cider, such as Magners

Non-alcoholic

• Brown lemonade

• Red lemonade

• Cavan Cola

• McDaid's Football Special

• Irish breakfast tea

Scottish cuisine

Scottish cuisine is the specific set of cooking traditions and practices associated with Scotland. It has distinctive attributes and recipes of its own, but shares much with wider European cuisine as a result of foreign and local influences both ancient and modern. Traditional Scottish dishes exist alongside international foodstuffs brought about by migration. Scotland's natural larder of game, dairy, fish, fruit, and vegetables is the integral factor in traditional Scots cooking, with a high reliance on simplicity and a lack of spices from abroad, which were often very expensive. Scottish cuisine is enjoying a renaissance. In most towns, Chinese and Indian take-away restaurants exist along with traditional fish and chip shops. Larger towns and cities offer cuisine ranging from Thai and Japanese to Mexican, Pakistani, Polish and Turkish.

History

Scotland, with its temperate climate and abundance of indigenous game species, has provided a cornucopia of food for its inhabitants for millennia. The wealth of seafood available on and off the coasts provided the earliest settlers with their sustenance. Agriculture was introduced, with primitive oats quickly becoming the staple. In common with many medieval European neighbors, Scotland was a feudal state for a greater part of the second millennium. This put certain restrictions on what one was allowed to hunt, therefore to eat. In the halls of the great men of the realm, one could expect venison, boar, various fowl and songbirds, expensive spices (pepper, cloves, cinnamon, etc.), and the meats of domesticated species. From the journeyman down to the lowest cottar, meat was an expensive commodity, and would be consumed rarely. For the lower echelons of Medieval Scots, it was the products of their animals rather than the beasts themselves which provided nourishment. This is evident today in traditional Scots fare, with its emphasis on dairy produce. It would appear that the average meal would consist of a pottage of herbs and roots (and when available some meat or stock for flavouring), with bread and cheese when possible. Before Sir Walter Raleigh's introduction of the potato to the British Isles, the Scots' main source of carbohydrate was bread made from oats or barley. Wheat was generally difficult to grow because of the damp climate. Food thrift was evident from the earliest times, with excavated middens displaying little evidence of anything but the toughest bones. All parts of an animal were used. The mobile nature of Scots society in the past required food that should not spoil quickly. It was common to carry a small bag of oatmeal that could be transformed into a basic porridge or oatcakes using a girdle (griddle). It is thought that Scotland's national dish, haggis, originated in a similar way: A small amount of offal or low-quality meat, carried in the most inexpensive bag available, a sheep or pig's stomach. It has also been suggested that this dish was introduced by Norse invaders who were attempting to preserve their food during the long journey from Scandinavia.