Research project uncovers Scotland’s food and drink heritage

Scottish breakfast
Scottish breakfast. Image: Dmitry Naumov Canva CC0

A new research project has been launched to uncover Scotland’s food and drink stories: Food Heritage Scotland. The goal of the project is to support tourism recovery by making it easier for tourism businesses and destinations to promote food and drink heritage to potential visitors.

People across Scotland are being asked to rummage in family recipe books, to dig out photos of food events, and to share recommendations of local produce.

The project is being led by marketing consultant Lorna Young, a specialist in food and rural tourism, and by Dr Valentina Bold, a leading expert in Scotland’s cultural heritage.

Young commented: “We want to gather Scotland’s food and drink heritage for two reasons. First of all, we recognise that food tourism is a very important market for Scotland and identifying food tourism growth opportunities will help businesses and communities recover from the impact of covid and lockdown. Secondly, we would like to see food and drink represented in the Year of Scotland’s Stories 2022 celebrations, so this survey is an important first step in gathering a very authentic repository of information to help inform this.”

Bold said: “What we want to do now is to fill the gaps with contemporary knowledge of what is so special about Scottish food. We want to understand the varieties of food we cook at home, what we eat when we go out, what food means to us everyday, and on special occasions, in our modern and diverse Scotland. We want to be able to tell Scots at home and visitors to Scotland about our rich traditions – of eating, and also of producing food and drink here. I am very excited to have these conversations with Scots of long and new standing, and to take this opportunity to understand what food heritage Scotland means today.”

Curious to know more about Scotland’s food and drink heritage? Watch the video below.

Source: Food Heritage Scotland.

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Doneren