Roll with it, Scotland!

It's more than a month now since the Scottish people, faced with their biggest political decision in living memory, decided not to turn their backs on 300 years of history and become independent, but to remain part of the UK.

What had seemed initially like an idea that would never take flight - no doubt why the government agreed to a referendum in the first place - ended up being nail-bitingly close, with the 'Yes' campaign gathering more and more momentum as the referendum approached, and the three main party leaders looking increasingly worried, decamping to Edinburgh to give pleading speeches to convince Scottish people not to leave them. But in the end they said no, Westminster breathed a sigh of relief, Salmond resigned, and the Queen purred. Allegedly.

What has this got to do with tins? Nothing really, but I myself was north of the border over the summer, both in Edinburgh for the festival and later on visiting relatives in the Highlands, so naturally during that time I spent a while perusing various shops for local tins of interest, and came home with a couple of corkers, including this one, which even has its own smart tartan label.

 

For Burns Night back in January I tried a tin of haggis from Grants, a Galston-based firm who have been making Scotland's most famous foodstuff since 1885. Haggis is in fact just a small part of their product range, as I discovered after spotting this tin of "A&B Roll" in a Tesco in Edinburgh. Some might be put off by the description of it as 'Spicy Beef & Ham Roll', but I was intrigued. Further inspection of the label had me even more interested, with the ingredients list elaborating that it contained "pickled beef and smoked ham". This was a tin that had to be tried.

The label had a general bit of blurb about Grants foods being "the authentic taste of Scotland", but as to the name of the product, it remained curiously silent. Presumably the 'B' was for "beef", but if so, what was the 'A' for? The Grants' website shed no further light on the subject - it was only when I took a look at the company's Facebook page that I found a post from them in response to a customer query about the product, which said:

"Grant's A&B Roll contains Beef and Ham which is delicately spiced making it a tasty alternative to Corned Beef. The name comes from the historical source of the meats, originally Aberdeen Beef and Belfast Ham."

 

I think that's pretty interesting, and worthy of being more widely advertised. It's certainly far more interesting than the "Did You Know?" facts that appear on the website, such as: "Grant's products are found in the canned meat section of supermarkets and stores". Not exactly mind-blowing, is it?

 

 

 

Anyway - back to the tin itself. The label says it is "IMPORTANT" to "Chill before serving" - as is often suggested for corned beef - and that to open you should "Open both ends carefully and push through". I heed their advice, and the meat glides out of the tin with no problem at all. At first glance it looks very much like corned beef, with the characteristic layer of fat around the outside, and smells like it too - but there is also a secondary porky, slightly SPAM-like smell, which hits you almost unexpectedly, but not unpleasantly - indeed it is actually a lot more appealing than I've managed to make it sound there.

 
Scraping off as much of the fat as possible, I cut a slice from the roll, and there in cross-section you can then see as well as smell that this is a hybrid meat product; the standard corned beef texture is flecked with the more pinkish-coloured pieces of the ham. On tasting too, that unique, unmistakeable corned-beefiness is followed by a punchier, more pungent pigginess, but also quite a discernible spicy kick, which in my book is very welcome. I'm not sure I would ever have described corned beef as being 'moreish', but somehow this is - I might even go as far as to say that it's not just a tasty alternative, but a tastier alternative.

I decide to extend the "authentic taste of Scotland" by serving it up on some traditional oatcakes, with a slice of beef tomato as well - being of almost equal diameters, the three of which stack quite neatly. As I have some soured cream to use up, a blob of that is spooned on top of the beef, and then is crowned with a heap of pickled red cabbage which I also happened to have in the fridge. They give it a bit of an Eastern European feel, which doesn't really fit with the Scottish theme, but I have become slightly obsessed with the cabbage of late, more often than not eating it straight from the enormous jar that I bought in Lidl, vaguely reminscent of Bridget Jones with her jar of Branston Pickle. So it makes quite a nice change to actually be eating it with something else for once.

 

Not the prettiest of snacks ever, but certainly colourful, and in fact the different flavours seem to work nicely together, so it's not quite as much of a car crash as it looks. Apparently A&B Roll can now be bought in ASDA stores in England (in the canned meat section, as I'm sure you'll remember from that fascinating fact on the Grants website) but I hope it becomes more widely available - I really like the beef-ham combination, perhaps not least as it's perfect for an indecisive person like myself. "Should I have a corned beef sandwich, or a ham sandwich?" Why separate the two? Like many things in life, they're Better Together.