A Capful of Whisky Improves the Porridge.
It’s an old chestnut that travel brings wisdom, but who are we to argue? Recently I found myself on a plane back from Scotland with my head filled up with ideas like some old philosopher, scrambling for a pen to write it all down. Here are the field notes from the trip
In the month of May, Scotland glows yellow. There are daffodils everywhere growing wild and planted in vast gardens. Daffodils were originally brought to the British Isles by the Romans. Long after the empire’s old walls and roads have crumbled the daffodils remain to astonish us.
Raise your eyes a little higher on the landscape and the theme continues. A scrappy shrub named common broom is in full bloom, painting the hillsides golden yellow. How the entire countryside managed to be color-coordinated throughout my trip was a delightful mystery.
The thing about getting out into the middle of a country not your own is you get to take people at face value. It’s a welcome escape from the conversations at home, where the available subject matter is so often trapped in the narrow tribalisms of work or politics or, worse, dipped from the shallow pool of what was seen on the morning TV news. The talk between people thrown together by travel is about things that matter. The strange abundance of pheasants running across the country lane between Knockando and Craigellachie, for example. Or the possibilities malted whisky brings to cooking. Scotland has its own arguments I’m sure, especially as I was visiting in the weeks just prior to the United Kingdom’s vote to depart the European Union. The beauty of being the one wandering through is you don’t get pulled under by the rivers of poison that spew out of such a debate. Distance from home is an elixir for enjoyable conversation.
The castles dotting the Scottish countryside stand as a testament to civilization’s long withdrawal from the wandering life. We may be roamers at heart and on vacation, but in practice we mark our boundaries with stones and retreat behind battlements to fiercely defend them. Tour a Scottish castle and you see this process displayed like the concentric rings of a tree. You are quite literally dissecting history.
The oldest part of the castle is the medieval tower that stands at the center. These are tall, narrow structures and they made up the entirety of the living space during the years when William Wallace and Robert the Bruce fought their wars with the English. The old towers were cold and claustrophobic, full of murder holes and steep, easy to defend staircases.
Spreading out from the central tower are the more comfortable sections built as castles got bigger under the three turbulent centuries of rule by the Stuart kings. The great lords were getting more powerful, and needed space to house the men-at-arms they put to work defending their interests.
Finally came the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746, which marked the end of neighbor battling neighbor in Scotland. The idea of your home being a castle passed on into metaphor. The great lords and ladies cut windows through the thick walls and covered over the rough stone with plaster. The old fortresses became fine country estates surrounded by sprawling formal gardens.
Once they quit fighting the English and each other these same Highlanders would form some of the most storied regiments defending the far-flung British Empire. The castles on the tourist route are full of museums and memorials commemorating their exploits. Even more compelling were the words I found carved into a single headstone in a quiet cemetery near the inn where I was staying. Buried there are a man and wife who died during the reign of Queen Victoria, both at the ripe old age of 77. Reading further down the stone you come to the sons of the family. A lieutenant of the Second Scottish Horse, killed in 1901 in the South African Transval, aged 23 years. A lieutenant of the 6th Seaforth Highlanders who died in 1917 at Aubigny-En-Artois, aged 24 years. A captain killed in 1918 at Shiraz, Persia, aged 29 years. There was no interpretive plaque. What more could there be to say?
Traveling through Scotland, it feels like you rarely take a step that hasn’t already been trod at some point in the past. Stroll down a sidewalk and there’s a grassy spot marked by three tall stones left behind by a long-vanished tribe of Picts. Look at the side of a building and there’s an inscription telling you Bonnie Prince Charlie passed this way on the long march to his final battle at Culloden. I took a nature hike along a rushing stream. Even there, deep into the forest, I came across an ancient stone bridge. Just enough to remind me I was sharing the trail with history.
Some might use such ever-present reminders of things past as an excuse to spend their days looking backward. But the Scottish are a breakfast people. Tucking in to a full-whack Scottish breakfast is a sign of faith in the day ahead. That may explain why the people of Scotland so overwhelmingly and optimistically voted against leaving the European Union, even if their side ultimately lost to the crowd determined to turn its back on the future.
As a meal, breakfast has been in decline of late. Who has the time anymore? There’s even a new university study that questions the traditional role of breakfast as the most important meal of the day. The breakfast skeptics have obviously never begun their day in the dining room of the Cardhu Country House in Knockando. There are kippers on the menu, and a traditional Scottish breakfast built around a delightfully herbal haggis from the butcher in nearby Aberlour. Americans consider eating haggis a brave act, as it is banned by our FDA. I found it delicious as long as one doesn’t inquire too deeply into its makings.
But for me the thing was the porridge. Here were ingredients worth inquiring about. Porridge is what Americans less poetically call oatmeal, ladled into a bowl with a swirl of honey and a pour of the thick local cream. But the best part the good proprietor of the Cardhu Country House saved for last, smiling his helpful smile as he revealed it. “A capful of whisky improves the porridge.”
And there it was. The secret to starting the day with an epic bowl of porridge. Maybe the secret to a lot of things. Find pleasure in the unexpected places, and the unorthodox combinations. Don’t let the relentless goad of the TV news ticker steal your life. Be ever mindful that we are given gifts like travel, love and the taste of good whisky, and most days that is enough. Or as the proprietor of the Cardhu Country house put it, a capful of whisky improves the porridge. Rarely does a philosophy for living get articulated with such profound simplicity.
