Salmond forgets a key ingredient

I SUSPECT I'm no different from most Scottish folk in that, after a trip abroad, there's nothing I like more than to tuck in to a big plate of good Scottish grub.

While I often regale readers about wondrous flavours of foreign fayre on my international travels – it's impossible to beat a good old-fashioned plate of mince and tatties, battered haddock and chips and a black pudding and crispy bacon roll, smothered with lashings of brown sauce.

So I raise two cheers for First Minister Alex Salmond who, this week, informed anyone that was interested that he was changing his diet to Scottish food in support of local suppliers.

Gone were his cravings for curries and, instead, he was on to healthy stuff such as porridge and the occasional tattie scone (but was it fried in bacon fat or toasted? I think we should be told).

The idea is a good enough one – to help promote the fantastic range of natural foods available from Scottish farmers, bakers, curers and other entrepreneurs of the great repast. The reason I can only award his stunt two cheers is, though, because it is firstly, slightly dishonest and secondly, it misses the point.

I say dishonest because there can be no doubt that the curry is king in Scotland. It is as much a part of the Scottish culinary scene as Cullen Skink or haggis and should be recognised as such.

Since Scots traders and soldiers returned to our shores after a sojourn to the Indian sub-continent, Scots have become not just curry converts, but disciples. There are now more Scottish curry houses than fish and chip shops – and even our chips can be had with curry sauce.

Indeed, many curry chefs that I have met tell me that such is the quality of Scotland's larder that it is difficult to find better curries than those in Scotland. The lamb that goes into the Mehti Gosht and the trout that makes the Machlisalan are made with local produce – so one way to help promote local foods would be to keep eating the curries – not start ditching them.

I should also add that one of the largest users of Scottish foods is in fact McDonald's – be it eggs, beef or salad vegetables – so if you want to help the Scottish farmer, go and eat a Big Mac without any pangs of guilt.

The challenge, however, is not to promote the eating of Scottish food, that's the easy part. No, the real difficulty is getting people to start to cook for themselves – using local Scottish produce and making some of those good old-fashioned Scottish recipes that your mum and grandma learnt at the range.

How many kids are now trusted with a sharp knife to chop the veg for the tattie soup – rather than be left to think it's for carrying up Lothian Road on a Friday night?

If people are to start buying Scottish produce they need to get the pinnie on and start cooking for themselves instead of relying on the ready-made meal, the micro and sauce in a jar.

These aids to convenience all have their place – but they are no substitute for knowing the basics – and in a world where too few of our young are not having the simple lessons passed down, only saying "buy Scottish" is not good enough.

Alex should be taking a lead, sharpening his knives and getting his rolling pin out. I'm sure he could show Wendy a thing or two by cooking up a storm in the kitchen.

Wrong spirit
I'm just back from Berlin, where I went to see Daniel Barenboim conduct the Berlin State Opera production of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg – for which an invite to the Edinburgh Festival should be extended.

There, I ate the largest Wiener schnitzel I had ever seen (lovely) and also had some great German beers.

I also noticed the bars had happy hours and other price promotions, yet drunken youths did not seem to be an obvious problem.

If Alistair Darling thinks he will reduce loutish behaviour by adding 59p to a bottle of Scotch then he's clearly less bright than I've given him credit for. I wasn't aware whisky is the drink of choice for binge drinkers.

Follyrood?
When I was last in Berlin in 1980, its new pantheon to the Socialist deity – the parliament building of the East Germany – had not long been completed in East Berlin, while the Dom, Berlin's beautiful Christian Cathedral, was being left to fall down as a Second World War ruin.

Nearly 30 years later, the great socialist edifice is being demolished while the Dom has been restored to its former glory.

Whither the Holyrood Parliament in 30 years' time? A proud beacon of an independent Scotland, a bedraggled and expensive testament to architectural folly, or replaced with a new convention centre and its MSPs abolished?