Have a Bite of Broonie

England has its share of quaintly named foods, such as baps and jumbles (breakfast rolls and cookies, respectively), but Scotland leads the wild-name league. One reason is that it simply has more exotic sources for its words: Norwegian (the language of the Vikings survived in remote Scottish islands as late as the 19th century) and the ancient Gaelic language, to say nothing of French, because of the long Franco-Scottish alliance, and the unique Scottish pronunciation of English words.

From the English side come “atholl brose” (a drink of Scotch and oatmeal), “crappit heids” (heads and livers of haddock “cropped” and cooked with oatmeal), “hairst bree” (harvest broth) and probably “clapshot” (potatoes cooked with turnips) . . . at least nobody else is claiming “clapshot.” Norse has contributed “broonie” (a sort of oatmeal gingerbread) and Gaelic the “partan” part of “partan bree” (crab soup). Somehow the “skink” part of “cullen skink” (a smoked fish soup) sneaked in from Germany.

The hardest to recognize are the French words. Who would imagine that “stovie” (a steamed potato) is the French “etouffee” and “howtowdie” (a chicken stew) is “hutaudeau” (an old French word for young chicken), or that “cabbie-claw” comes from “cabillaud” (codfish; amazingly, the same word that gave us “bacalao”)?

Along with the exoticism, though, the striking thing about Scottish dish names is how affectionate many of them are, humble though the dishes themselves may be. The rest of the world may see only cottage cheese, a small beef pie, a sort of oatmeal pilaf and a raisin pastry, but to the Scots they’re crowdie, bridie, skirlie and fattie cutties.