Bread pudding recipes

I don't like to throw away food. I like to keep a nice tight pantry.
After my New Year's Eve fondue event, in which people ate a great deal less bread than I had planned, I ended up with two large basketfuls of stale white bread, cut into squares. What the fuck am I going to do with this?
Then I remembered the bread pudding that my Nanny Savino made. It was the old war-time rationing style bread pudding, heavy, sweet, comforting. Nanny Savino sold squares of it from her council flat front door in Holloway, along with toffee apples and Woodbines. This dish is from a time when nobody threw anything away.
I made two versions of this bread pudding, using up jam jar preserves from my pantry. The first version, made with a jar of prunes in Armagnac, was dark, fudgy and alcoholic, almost indistinguishable from Christmas pudding. The second bread pudding was lighter and paler, with vanilla and pears stewed in whisky and white wine. It shows that bread pudding is endlessly adaptable.

Prunes in Armagnac

I spent quite a bit of my childhood in France, near a village called Condom in the Armagnac region. We had these every day for pudding. Even kids were given alcohol in south west France in the 70s. I got sick of them at the time. 

250g prunes from Agen, semi-dried
200ml water
100g sugar
1 vanilla pod
250ml Armagnac or more if you wish.

Bring the prunes, water, sugar and vanilla pod to the boil, then simmer gently for half an hour. Pour into a sterilised litre jar with the Armagnac. Store in a dark cool cupboard. These get better as time goes on. The bottle I used was five years old, therefore very pungent.

Dark Bread Pudding

Prunes in Armagnac or
250g of mixed dried fruits soaked in 250ml of either sherry, armagnac, brandy, rum or whisky
75g brown sugar
1/2tsp mixed spice
Zest of an orange
1/2tsp of nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
500g of white bread, (I kept the crusts)
250ml of whole milk
50g salted butter, melted
1 egg, beaten

Soak the dried fruit with the sugar, spice, zest, nutmeg and cloves in one bowl.
In another larger bowl soak the bread in the milk.
Preheat the oven to 180c.
Butter a shallow baking dish (20 x 15cm approximately)
When the bread is soft, take another bowl and combine the melted butter and egg.
Place all three bowls (bread, alcoholic fruit and egg mix) together and pour into the baking dish.
Bake for an hour.

Light Bread Pudding

500g white bread
250ml milk
100g white sugar
1tsp vanilla paste
50g salted butter, melted
1 egg
750ml to 1 litre jar poached whole pears (4 -6 pears) in brandy, whisky or white wine.

In one bowl soak the bread and milk.
In another smaller bowl, mix the sugar, vanilla, butter and egg.
Preheat the oven to 180ºc.
Butter a shallow baking dish (20 x 15cm approximately)
When the bread is soft, add the sugar and egg mixture.
Drain the poached pear alcohol into the mixture and stir.
Pour the batter into the buttered baking dish.
Add the pears, pressing them into the batter decoratively.
Bake for an hour.

Serve with custard or cream.

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Girl drinks whisky: visiting Oban

I got the early train from Glasgow to Oban: the West Highland line is one of the world's most beautiful train rides. The weather changed every five minutes, from sunny to snowing, from rain to blue skies. You gallop past valleys, rivers, lakes, streams, lochs, snow-tipped mountains, ancient mounds, heathery hills and deer- an untouched prehistoric landscape. The other passengers, a comfort of ladies in cardigans and scarves, in lilac and raspberry, order tea and shortbread from the all important trolley. 

What to do, see and eat in Oban

Oban itself is solid looking, carved out of a granite hillside under putty clouds and charcoal scrubbed sky. There is a stream over which small hump-backed bridges traverse. Basic facts about Oban that you should know:

• It has one of the best fish n chip shops in Britain called, imaginatively, 'Oban Fish and Chip Shop', bigged up by Rick Stein.
• The  'Spoons overlooking the front has real log fires, but also visit other characterful pubs such as the Oban Inn. People are very friendly. 
• It has a ferry port and ferries, manned by burly seamen with sexy accents, dawdling off to a selection of misty islands. These ferries are called 'Calmac'. The islanders completely depend on Caledonian Macbrayn ferries and have a love/hate relationship with them. If you are lucky you see whales. The food is very good on the boats: they make an effort to have healthy and vegetarian options but they also have proper rib-sticking food like custard and chips. Calmac even has a whisky tour by ferry.
• I enjoyed a blustery sea walk leading to a Dunstaffnage castle, which imprisoned Flora Macdonald, but was shut by the time I got there, just before 4pm. You pass large seafront hotels with grand breakfast rooms and sea-facing rooms. People walk their tartan-coated dogs. There is a mini lighthouse and a war memorial - the section listing names beginning with the letter 'm' is the longest.
• The sunset in winter starts early: hazy and orange, settling into little pools in the distance, the water surface like snake skin.
• Visit the tartan shops; excellent places to get a kilt measured up, find out your tartan or your clan. You inherit your clan from your mother's side.
• In the summer you can go on boat trips to see seals. 
• It has an excellent seafood stall 'Oban Seafood Hut' (see this review by Jay Rayner) on the front, which is only open in summer.
• Upstairs is the equally delicious but slightly more expensive, Ee-Usk restaurant, also mentioned by Mr Rayner.
• Tour the Oban whisky distillery. 

In short, Oban has everything anybody could possibly want in a town.

Visiting the Oban distillery

I visited the Oban whisky distillery and the first thing I learnt was that I wasn't allowed to take pictures or my phone. Any electronic goods could cause a spark and blow up the distillery. You need a special license to take photographs. The picture above of the copper stills had to be taken from the doorway.  
There are two broad categories of whisky: single and blends. Just as French wines do not have the grape on the front of the bottle, for the skill is in the blending of different grapes, most whisky is a blend. Although single grain whiskies, particularly single malts, are fashionable, one could also say that the skill of whisky is in the blending. 
Whisky, from the Gaelic uisge or water, is a man's drink. Very few women order it. The women's equivalent is Baileys made with Irish whiskey. (Scottish whisky is without an 'e'). Here is a story from the man that invented Baileys, David Gluckman. I love Baileys. In fact my whole family lived on it this Christmas, having got a duty-free deal at the airport. We didn't get on very well this holiday, probably the only thing holding us together as a family was a daily coffee with Baileys replacing the milk. Divine! Don't mock it till you've tried it. 

The process

Whisky can only be called Scotch if it has been aged for at least three years. It's usually made from barley, a grain that grows well in cold damp climates. Scotch has only three ingredients: grain, water and yeast. Soft Scottish water is what makes it unique. Additional flavour is added by smoke from peat and storage in bourbon or sherry barrels. When tasting whisky, first you 'nose' it. Although the ingredients are simple, flavours include orange, honey, butterscotch, salt, vanilla.

The grain or malt is dried with heat, often using peat as fuel, which adds its own flavour and smoke. Peat which covers much of the Scottish highlands, consists of thousands of years of rotted vegetation. While Oban has only a hint of peat, Lagavullin and Laphroaig have a higher percentage - as much as 65 particles per millilitre while smoke is counted in parts per million.

The process is complicated, involving: soaking the grain, 'turning' it on the malting floor so that it can germinate, milling in steel rollers, grist, mash, hot water, tuns and fermentation. We walk through the different rooms, each with its own overwhelming odour, either of yeast or malt or alcohol. One room contains the heart of the operation, the copper stills, the worm and something called the 'spirit safe' which is padlocked. Security seems to be essential. Not a drop must escape. In fact the only free booze enjoyed by locals is the fumes pumped out from the warehouse, built into the cliff face. "The neighbours are very relaxed" says our guide.

Maturing the whisky

No distillery keeps all of their whisky in the same place, it's distributed around other distilleries in Scotland. This way they aren't keeping all their eggs in one basket. 
Whisky isn't aged in the bottle, but in the cask. Before the 1930s, whisky had a different taste as ale, sherry or port wine barrels were used. During prohibition in the USA, white oak ex-bourbon casks were shipped to Scotland (American coopers still needed to earn a living). Today, a finishing cask using European red oak can be used, to give a richer, rounder, sweeter flavour.

The staves are flat-packed and shipped from America and put back together by coopers in Fife. The barrels are held together without ends and metal straps. There are no nails or glue. The casks are porous: 2% is lost over a year to evaporation, which is 28% over the 14 years Oban is matured. (This is why the spirit tax is paid at the end.) The casks breathe in and take on flavours such as oak and bourbon and honey.
Whisky must be stored in oak for at least 3 years and 1 day. At the same time it's important not to leave the whisky for too long in oak.

I was surprised to learn that cask strength whisky is distilled to 70 or 80% proof and is diluted with de-ionised water to 40%. Master distillers sample all day every day but don't get drunk. Skills.

Buying whisky

At the end of the tour we tasted Oban whisky and a couple of others. I realised that I like whisky very much, particularly peaty, smoky whisky, even though most girls don't drink it.
Since the visit I've read Rachel McCormack's entertaining book 'Chasing the Dram' which is her story of getting to know her own national drink. I'm currently reading Thad Vogler's 'By the smoke and the smell' which has chapters on Scotch whisky, while he travels with his stepfather. 

Things to look out for:

• If there is a number of years listed on the bottle, this is the age of the youngest whisky if it's a blend.
• Connoisseurs aren't big fans of something called 'chill filtering' which all the big brands do. It filters out any cloudiness but also makes whisky blander and more samey. 
• This is an increasing problem as, like you find in Bordeaux, most of the brands of whisky have been bought out by large corporations.
• Scotland has 150 whisky distilleries, only six of which are independent.
• Oban claims to use its own locally grown malt. But many whisky distillers use centrally fermented malt or grain provided by the large corporation. Again this diminishes character and regionality.

How to drink it?

There is a big debate as to whether to add water. Even a couple of drops of water can 'open' up and sweeten the whisky. You could use a pipette to administer the water for precision. 
It's fine to have it on the rocks, with ice.
Rachel McCormack says there isn't much tradition of using whisky in food. However it matches well with ginger and scallops and a drop of 14 year old whisky in your porridge does wonders. Whisky is quite good with curry - Johnny Walker is India's national drink. 

But I've got a whole new way of judging alcohol: not by the taste nor quality, not by how it's brewed or by how old it is - none of that usual stuff. I now judge alcohol by the way it makes you feel- the particular level and variety of drunkenness which it gets you to. 
Whisky gets you a nice kind of drunk. You feel mellow and chilled out. You don't get angry or randy or violent. You just feel relaxed and blissed out and not-give-a-shittish.
This is a parameter that is so often forgotten.

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Potato and cauliflower 'fondue' soup

My New Years' resolutions:

1. Make soup
2. Eat soup

I don't eat enough soup. It always seems a pfaff. But it isn't. I felt like I was coming down with a lurgey last night. I needed soup. I got home from the Basquiat exhibition and, start to finish, vegetable chopping to hot spoon of soup in my mouth, this took 25 minutes. Very quick.

Why eat more soup?

Quenches appetite
Most poor countries start a meal with soup, it has the same effect as pasta, it fills you up before the expensive part of the meal- the meat or the fish.

Contributes to your 5 a day vegetables
It's #Veganuary so try vegan soups or at least vegetarian.

Helps combat food waste
Soups can be made with floppy or past-their-best vegetables. You can either use these for stock or in the actual soup itself.

Soup is cheap
You can make soup out of anything. Water + any ingredient = soup. Ever heard the legend of stone soup?

Soup is comforting
Think of soup as a hot smoothie. No don't 'cos that sounds disgusting. But if all the clean eaters replaced smoothies with soup, they'd be a lot healthier.


This soup was made with Comté cheese and a little white wine, to add a fondue vibe. I went to visit the farmers in the Jura last summer and my New Year's Eve supper club was centred around a Comté fondue.
It's quite chunky, but you could blend it you prefer a smooth soup.
Soups benefit from a little sourness. To achieve this, add a little wine, or yoghurt, or vinegar. Here I put in pickled jalapeno pepper slices (a great store cupboard standby).

Potato and cauliflower 'fondue' soup recipe

Time: 25 minutes

Serves 2 to 4

3tbsps olive oil
4 large potatoes, peeled, diced into 3cm cubes
1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets
1 vegetable stock cube
4 cloves of garlic, minced
750ml hot water
1 glass white wine
150g of comté cheese
Salt and Pepper
Pickled jalapeno slices to garnish

Prep the vegetables, then heat the olive oil in a deep saucepan. Add the potatoes and fry gently for a few minutes.
Add the cauliflower florets and fry for a few minutes.
Add the stock cube and hot water, stir.
Simmer for 10 minutes then add the white wine and cheese.
Season to taste, serve with pickled jalapeno slices.

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Glasgow: where to go, what to do

I'm part Scottish, just like many others in England. My Irish great grandfather married Isobel Anderson from Glasgow. My grandfather, John Harris Rodgers, born in Glasgow, was known as 'Jock' Rodgers. Jock came down to London at the age of 16 with his parents. They lived in Islington, in poor flats, near to my grandmothers' Italian family, who were Italian. Catholics marry Catholics. 

My grandfather married Carmela. He was mostly unemployed, for this was during the Great Depression. Regular employment came in the form of War World Two, when he was called up to the Royal Air Force. Being short, his role was as a tail gunner in bomber planes. This position was hazardous, the most vulnerable target, on the small cramped turret at the back of a plane. Tail gunners generally had a short lifespan.

Carmela caught tuberculosis. She had two children, Marianne and my father John. She was in hospital again, ill and pregnant with her third child Sandra, when my grandfather asked for leave to visit. It was turned down. Jock was killed on the 30th operation of his tour, the last flight. He never saw Sandra the baby. Carmela died seven years later of grief and a brain tumour. My father was left an orphan.

My dad thinks that if Jock Rodgers were an officer he would have been given leave to see his sick pregnant wife and baby. Therein begins the innate hatred of my family towards the establishment. This feeling has been passed down: we are all dyed-in-the-wool outsiders and rebels.

I wanted to visit Mary Street in Glasgow, to see the tenement building where my Glaswegian family lived. But a stonking great motorway, the M8 divided the city in the 70s, knocking down the streets where my forebears lived, where my dad and aunt went to escape the London bombing. 

Who were the morons that okayed this? Why are such poor planning decisions made in our great British cities?  (While we are on the subject: who were the idiots that knocked down The Cavern in Liverpool, The Hacienda in Manchester?) Those tenement buildings, modernised, would have been more attractive than what replaced them. It's cheaper to demolish, though, than refurbish. 

Glasgow architecture is haphazard. There is the odd Zaha Hadid architectural gimmick, bits and bobs from Charles Rennie Mackintosh, but also cheap and nasty modern blocks not befitting a great merchant city. Glasgow has grand buildings but it is poor. Amongst the hipster restaurants there are pawn shops and Poundstretchers. There is also a McDonalds Bakers with a suspiciously similar typeface to the more famous McDonalds. I guess they couldn't be sued. The MacDonalds clan come from Scotland after all.

Despite the best efforts of town planners to deter you, I recommend a visit to Glasgow. 

Here are some ideas:

1) Charles Rennie Mackintosh buildings

I ascended The Lighthouse, an art gallery and building featuring the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, to the top, where the visitor can survey, under dark weighted skies, a panoramic of Glasgow. You can also visit the Willow tea rooms, the Glasgow School of Art, and the building that houses the Stereo cafe/bar mentioned in my piece on vegan Glasgow, amongst others.

2) Buchanan Street

Down Buchanan street, the Oxford street of Glasgow, every shop had hopeful sales. In TKMaxx off Buchanan street, they sell mostly anoraks - it's too cold to wear anything else.

3) Glasgow Necropolis

I climbed the Necropolis, a multi-denominational graveyard, on Sunday morning for the view. Glasgow was almost unrecognisable in the sunshine. The sun glinted off the cathedral while chimneys burped smoke in the Gorbals. There are free walking tours available.

4) Glasgow Cathedral/St Mungos

The cathedral and the surrounding area are interesting to visit. You will see the lampposts featuring a tree, bell, bird and a fish with a ring in its mouth, which also form the arms of Glasgow.  These are the symbols of St Kentigern, who is known as St Mungo. Top picture features a street mural of St Mungo.

5) People's Palace

I enjoyed this museum, which documents the lives of the poor, in particular the tenements, some of which housed 20 people in one room. The population of Glasgow grew rapidly in the early part of the 20th century and housing was overcrowded. In the People's Palace, you see the kinds of food they ate, their clothes, games and reproduction of a typical tenement kitchen. They also have a gorgeous cafe area in a large greenhouse.

6) Kelvingrove art gallery and museum

Kelvingrove museum is in a gorgeous Victorian building on the outskirts of Glasgow and is well worth a visit. My favourite galleries displayed vintage jackets in tartan, a heart-breaking painting of the highlander clearances, Charles Rennie Mackintosh furniture and china (blue willow). There are also dinosaurs, a spitfire plane, strange hanging heads, so look up as well as around.

7) Tennents Distillery

Tennents is Scotland's oldest beer distillery, probably the most popular drink after whisky, buckfast and Irn Bru. You can do a tour around the distillery. As part of our press trip (comprised of European travel bloggers) we got to hear very talented local musicians, part of Celtic Connections, a winter music festival in Glasgow, playing in the Tennents on-site pub.

8) Police boxes

Fans of Doctor Who and of old British street furniture will be delighted that four of these Police Boxes can be spotted around Glasgow. They were originally used as mini police stations. The above can be seen in Cathedral gardens.

9) Pubs and drinking holes

Drinking alcohol is a Scottish national pastime and part of their skillset. Glaswegians make very congenial drinking pals.

The Old College Bar, Glasgow's oldest pub, was built circa 1515 and incredibly, it's being threatened with demolition. (PLEASE Glasgow STOP KNOCKING DOWN THE PRETTY PARTS OF YOUR TOWN).

For some reason our (Scandinavian) tour guide (in fact most of Visit Scotland seem to be French, the auld alliance in action) said this was Glasgow's most dangerous pub, full of criminals. That just made me want to visit more but I didn't have time.

If you are a whisky fan, visit The Pot Still, which has more than 600 whiskies (as recommended by Rachel McCormack author of 'Chasing the Dram') and Dram in the West End.

10) Billy Connolly murals

Glasgow's most famous son, comedian, actor and musician Billy Connolly had a series of mural portraits painted to mark his 75th birthday. This one didn't look very much like him. 

11) Buy a kilt

Think of a kilt as a woolly sari. A kilt outfit can cost upwards of £600; the most traditional will contain 8 yards of wool tartan, socks with 'flashes' or garters, a sporran (basically a handbag as kilts don't have pockets), a kilt pin. Those shown in the pictures are weekend or walking kilts because they are already pleated and probably not wool. I think all men should wear kilts not trousers. It's just so much sexier. 

Try Slanj Kilts or MacGregor MacDuff for Outlander swoon-worthy macho dressing.
Remember, your clan and tartan are descended from your mother's side, so in our families case, it'll be Clan Anderson, which is a 'sept' (or sub clan) of Clan Mackintosh. 

12) The oldest house in Glasgow

Built in 1471, the Provand's Lordship is one of only 4 medieval buildings they haven't yet managed to demolish in Glasgow. I only saw the outside but there is a museum and garden to visit.

13) Walk along the river

The river Clyde runs through Glasgow and it is a pleasant walk. Now shipbuilding is no longer a big industry, Glasgow is developing the river banks, rather like the Thames in London.

I travelled to Glasgow via the Caledonian Sleeper, courtesy of ScotRail. In 2018 this train will be upgraded to include double beds and wifi.

In Glasgow I stayed at the Abode hotel, which features a 1930s 'cage' lift. The staff were very helpful, especially when I flooded my bedroom. Sorry.

This visit was courtesy of Visit Scotland.

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Vegetarian Christmas Wreath Recipe

Sunday lunch is one of the few occasions when we feel obliged to entertain and eat as a family. Christmas day dinner is the daddy of all Sunday lunches, enough to stress out even the most competant cook. Added to this, entertaining today is even more complicated with every guest having, seemingly, a different food requirement.
In particular, what to do about the vegetarians and vegans? A traditional Christmas dinner is actually more veggie friendly than you might think. It's one of the meals where we serve the most vegetables: roast potatoes, parsnips, peas, brussel sprouts and carrots, to name a few.
But as a host/ess you want to give vegetarian and vegan guests the same spectacular, luxurious, over-the-top banquetting food that everyone else will be getting. Christmas dinner is the ultimate winter feast and you want to serve a meat-free centrepiece to be proud of.
Vegans and vegetarians are normal people really. (Although I once had a Christmas day guest who claimed she was allergic to the modern world. I had to turn off all phones and the wifi for the day. Her flat is lined with silver foil.) Here are a few tips and tricks to survive a meat-free Christmas:

• Be aware of what cooking medium you use for the vegetables. Roast potatoes in duck fat will not be welcome. Strict vegans won't eat brussel sprouts coated with butter nor carrots doused with honey. So always reserve a portion of the vegetables to be cooked in vegetable oil, coconut butter or nut oils.
• Gravy must be vegetarian/vegan. 
• Keep emergency supplies, such as halloumi and firm tofu, for surprise vegetarians. Wrapped in puff or filo pastry, you can always cobble together something appealing.
• Use fresh herbs to garnish your dishes. They add vitality and zing, and we need our greens in winter.
• Some wines contain egg whites and fish scales for 'fining'. Consult sites such as WineTrust for lists of vegan and vegetarian wines.

Vegetarian Christmas wreath

This can be prepped in advance and popped in the oven in time for serving. You'll need a bundt tin, a pastry brush and 2 clean damp tea towels for covering the filo dough while you work.

1 large butternut squash, skinned, deseeded, cubed
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sea salt
6 to 8 sheets of filo pastry
100g of butter (or coconut oil if vegan)
1 tbsp of cinnamon, ground
100g of walnuts
200g blue cheese, cubed (replace with either vegan cheese or smoked tofu if vegan)
3 tbsp sweet and savoury cranberries (below)

Preheat the oven to 180ºC
Prepare the butternut squash and lay in an oiled baking tin, seasoning with the salt. Roast for 25 minutes or until tender. Then remove and cool.
Mix the butter or coconut oil with the ground cinnamon.
Brush the bundt tin with the butter/cinnamon or coconut oil/cinnamon mixture.
Working carefully with the filo pastry, keep it covered with the damp cloth, removing sheets one by one.
Drape the sheets in the bundt tin, covering the inside and leaving the extra to flop over the sides (this will be folded in later). Brush all the filo with the butter/oil/cinnamon mixture as you go. As you complete the lining of the tin with the filo, cover the exposed parts with the other damp cloth so that the pastry doesn't dry out.
Do at least 3 layers of filo brushing with the butter/oil/cinnamon.
Put the butternut squash in the bundt tin, spreading it around evenly.
Then add the walnuts and cubes of blue cheese.
Finally drizzle the sweet and savoury cranberries around the inside of the tin.
Once you fill the bundt tin with the stuffing, you will remove the cloth and cover the top of the tin with flaps of filo surrounding the tin.
If not cooking immediately, cover with cling film and place in the fridge.
Remove from the fridge, let it warm to room temperature.
Bake at 180ºC for 25 minutes.
Serve with extra sweet and savoury cranberries in the centre.

Sweet and savoury cranberries

This can be used in the recipe above, also as a chutney to go with cheeses or packed in pretty jars to give as a gift.

350ml apple cider vinegar
350g white sugar
1 heaped tsp or 15 all spice berries
1 heaped tsp or 15 peppercorns
1 heaped tsp or 15 juniper berries
5 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
2 star anise
300g frozen or fresh cranberries

To a medium sized saucepan add all the ingredients, bring to a boil then turn the heat down and simmer for 20 minutes.

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Vegan Glasgow

Last time I visited Glasgow was during the 1980s. I was working as a photographer for Cosmopolitan, covering the city. Somehow, after a night snapping pictures in a bar, I ended up with a Glaswegian stranger in a tenement flat in the Gorbals. The bedroom I found myself in, for I was very drunk, had an artex interior, walls and ceiling. Big swirly white polyfilla dips and crests. It was the thickest plastering I'd ever seen. Woozy with booze, I felt like a fly trapped in the interior of an artic roll, or a climber toiling up the North face wall of Everest.

I saw this lad again, returning for a weekend visit to see if I still liked him when sober. I didn't. I couldn't understand anything he said, spending much of the weekend saying 'Pardon?' He called people 'folk'. He read Balzac not Brett Easton Ellis. His fridge was empty save a paper bag of mince meat bleeding onto a white plate.

'Aw me ma left that fe us,' he exclaimed fondly. 

This sassenach was a vegetarian even back then. The horror. Outlander it was not. It didn't help that I was a bit of an '80s fashion snob.

Glasgow is infamous for the lowest life expectancy in Europe. But one of the reasons vegan food works so well in Glasgow is precisely because they combine the local urge to deep-fry everything in batter with the vegan regime. In Scotland, vegan food is not a joyless, brown, full-fibre sober health cure but delicious comfort food.

I visited two of Glasgow's vegan restaurants: Stereo and Mono, both, along with The 78 and a couple of others run by vegan restaurant supremo Craig Tannock. True to Tannock's musical background, music plays a big part in the restaurant names and ethos. Mono has an in-house vinyl store and hosts live bands.

Stereo Cafe/Bar is hidden down a rainy alleyway; dim Northern light leaking onto the front tables. Outside there was snow, not too much, but enough to add drama to the monochrome of Glasgow architecture. Service is courtesy of a fragile waiter with a gentle manner and Harry Potter glasses. He recommends the pine needle soda, which reminds me of Canadian Spruce beer. I eat a broccoli burger with chips and a warming golden syrup pudding with vegan ice cream.

The next day I went to Mono for lunch. The building itself is beautiful, with a domed skylight over a large sunlit room. Imposing steel brewing tanks line the side of the room where artisanal sodas such as ginger beer are brewed.

I apologise for being late, explaining, 'I've just flooded my hotel room'.

I get a tolerant grin and a 'nae problem' from front of house.

I order 'tof-ish and chips', golden billowy crunchy battered firm tofu with seaweed, a side order of pulled jackfruit, the vegan cheesecake and the home brewed ginger beer. It's all fantastic.

A record shop is attached. I bought Dusty in Memphis and Astral Weeks on vinyl. On another table in the restaurant is a young woman in a fur coat. A strange choice of garment for a vegan restaurant.

'Is that a fur coat I'm seeing over there?' I ask the waitress.
'Maybe it's fake?' replied the waitress.
'It looks real to me.'
'I don't know, I've never seen one.'

It's unlikely that you have seen or touched a real fur coat if you are under 40. I asked the young woman if it was real fur.

'Aye, but it's vintage,' she murmurs a bit defensively.

Scots vegans are much more tolerant than London ones is all I can say.

Inspired by my visit to Vegan Glasgow, I've made a 'Scottish' BBQ jackfruit taco. Jackfruit, an enormous khaki green carbuncle, the size of a watermelon, which looks similar and is related to the breadfruit, is grown in the tropics. Like the durian which it also resembles, it can, when ripe, emit a strong but infinitely more pleasant aroma.

In Kilburn, North West London, where I live, you can buy it fresh. Failing that, look for tinned green jackfruit in water not syrup. The fruit itself has three elements to it, a central core that you discard, a 'pleated' outer ring, known as 'arils', that you can rip in the manner of pulled pork and seed-like structures which can also be eaten.

Jackfruit is popular on vegan menus, providing a meaty texture and fibre. It's sometimes known as 'tree-mutton'.

Whisky 'BBQ' Jackfruit Taco Recipe with pink pickled onions

I happened to have the pink pickled onions in my fridge (I've always got a jar on the go, they are pretty and sour) and the whisky roasted sugar in my store cupboard.

You can use any 'slaw, salsa or citrussy salad to jazz up this taco however.

Pink Pickled Onions
1 red onion, skinned, sliced thinly
300ml White wine vinegar
3tbsp Sugar
1tbsp Salt

Whisky-roasted Brown Sugar
150g Soft brown sugar
1 dram of whisky

For the Jackfruit

1 tin of young green jackfruit in water, core discarded.
1 tsp dried smoked garlic or 2 cloves, crushed, of black garlic
1/2tsp cumin, ground
1tsp sweet paprika, ground
1/2tsp white pepper, ground
3tbsp whisky roasted brown sugar (recipe below) or plain brown sugar
1tbsp smoked salt
A few drops of liquid smoke
2 chipotle en adobo and some of the sauce, either buy or do recipe in link, it's another good store cupboard essential.
2tbsp olive oil

4 to 6 Corn tacos
Lime juice

For the pink pickled onions, put the sliced onions in a jar.
In a pan on a low heat, add the sugar and salt to the vinegar, stir until dissolved. Leave to cool.
Then add to the onions.
Leave for at least an hour or overnight until the onions turn pink.
This can be left in the fridge for 3 weeks.

For the whisky roasted sugar, preheat the oven to 170ºC.
Spread the sugar on some parchment paper (or a Silpat) on a roasting tray.
Sprinkle with the whisky.
Roast for 15 minutes or so.
The sugar will go hard if left (it lasts forever) but I break it up in a pestle and mortar.

For the jackfruit:
Prepare the jackfruit, then add all the list of ingredients including the chipotle en adobo and mix together.
In a pan on a medium heat, add the olive oil, then the jackfruit mixture. Fry gently for five minutes.

To combine:

Take a corn taco, add some of the jackfruit, a scoop of pink pickled onions, a squeeze of fresh lime. Season with salt to taste and eat!

Information

I travelled to Glasgow via the Caledonian Sleeper, courtesy of ScotRail. Next year this train will be upgraded to include double beds and wifi. I adore sleepers, so romantic.

I stayed at the Abode hotel which features a 1930s 'cage' lift. The staff were very helpful, especially when I flooded my bedroom. Sorry.

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