CHAS cookbook features celebrities' favourites

Oct 30 2009 by Gordon Bannerman, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

BIG County adventurer Mark Beaumont is rubbing shoulders with a string of Scottish celebrities.

But the Perthshire cyclist hasn’t got Hollywood A-listers Ewan McGregor, Dougray Scott and Brian Cox for company on his incredible bid to cycle the length of the American continent.

They all feature in an imaginative new cookbook compiled by former Masterchef winner Sue Lawrence which will benefit the children’s hospice CHAS at Kinross, which Crieff-born actor Ewan has backed for years.

Celebrities from sport, politics, the arts and broadcasting all responded to Sue’s plea for recipes and anecdotes from their childhoods in Scotland.

“Taste Ye Back” features 70-plus Great Scots and the food that made them.

So there’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s recollections of his mum’s soup on the stove at the Kirkcaldy manse, First Minister Alex Salmond’s recipe for Cullen Skink secured by wife Moira from the chef at the Pennan Inn, celebrated in Local Hero, and one-time St Johnstone player Ally McCoist’s partiality for a curry and Steak Balmoral.

Political broadcaster Andrew Marr, from Longforgan, still finds his mouth watering when he thinks of home-made jam with berries picked in the Carse of Gowrie.

Perthshire-reared comedian Fred MacAulay joked: “Because my dad was a policeman we were often given trout, salmon, pheasant and even goose. Some were gifts, some were evidence!”

Round-the-world cyclist Mark, whose mum Una now lives near Newburgh, recounts the days of home-schooling north of Blairgowrie on a 60-acre organic smallholding and occasional treat – always prawn cocktail and cheesecake – at the nearby Bridge of Cally Hotel.

On the home front, he relished tucking into mum’s vegetable stews and light-as-a-feather cheese souffle, while porridge also helped construct a body capable of tackling exhausting extreme adventures.

“Souffle was a heaven or hell dish because I loathed carrot souffle, which she often cooked!

“So, with my sisters, we would try to tell which it was but couldn’t as both were golden-domed, until you stuck the spoon in. If it was orange we despaired as it meant it was carrot!

“I also adored my granny’s broth, proper Scotch broth, along with cauliflower soup – two of my all-time favourites.”

Now the thought of mum’s fruit cheesecake is spurring him on through the latest challenge, which sees Mark climbing two of the world’s highest mountains while cycling from Alaska to the southern tip of South America.

Another local mum whose recipe book has been raided for Sue’s “Taste Ye Back” project is Carol McGregor, from Crieff.

Son Ewan remembers scoffing Scotch pies in front of the telly watching rugby with dad Jim. Mum Carol’s culinary skills get a rave review and he prized out of her the recipe for her “very special” bread and butter pudding.

Ewan McGregor admitted talking to Sue about her book brought wonderful childhood memories flooding back.

He added: “It was a great idea for a book and what’s more it is in aid of a charity that is very close to my heart.”

Edinburgh-based award-winning cook and food writer Sue, who collated the celebrities’ personal anecdotes and tested every recipe to herself, said: Most of the people I spoke to fondly remember their mothers as good cooks when it came to home baking, whilst eating out was a very rare occasion.”

“Taste Ye Back: Great Scots and the Food that Made Them” is published by Hachette Scotland priced £20 in hardback. A percentage of royalties goes to CHAS at Kinross, which was Scotland’s first children’s hospice.