Can an ignorant American ask a question about a Scots dish please?

[Jom222]

Preface-My paternal grandparents who died long before I was born both came from Scotland, Glasgow area, in the 1920's I think.

Growing up in the 70's, my father frequently prepared a dish he said his parents made often, 'mince potatoes and beans'.

The ground beef was simmered with lots of water and sliced onions, basically forever. Then we used a slotted spoon to take the wet beef and it was ALWAYS served with mashed potatoes and canned baked beans (which I understand are very different in the states vs UK)

My brothers, being animals, also added tons of ketchup to it and stirred together it resembled a plate of vomit. Some of them still prepare it to this day! They enjoyed it. I hated it, maybe bc of the appearance, not sure but I remember eating a lot of mashed potatoes those days.

My questions are-

Is or was this actually a common dish?
If so, just Scotland, or all over UK?
Did you have to sit at the dinner table staring at it while being lectured about starving children in India/China?

I saw a thread about the worst meal ever eaten and it got me thinking about this food. I don't like to criticize what people eat, we're all different but that dish was so awful yet my father and brothers all loved it. I don't remember my mother ever making or eating it though. (her cooking wasn't great either but I'll spare you the description of her 1970's 'goulash' for now, those days I ate crackers w/margarine)

Every good Australian housewife had a recipe for savoury mince to be served with potatoes somehow, rice or perhaps toast.

My own mother added a packet of chicken noodle soup powder, a tsp of Clive of India curry powder (not enough to make it a curry, as such) and a small tin of pineapple pieces which sounds weird but was really good.

No to the mince and tatties, but yes to the lecture about starving children, Africa in our household.

My granda was the only person I knew who added baked beans to Mince. He was usually feeding 8-10 adults and 6 grandkids I thought it was to bulk it out. Not had it since he died in 88. My husband is horrified when I have a piece n Mince, plain loaf obviously 😋

We used to have variations on mince and potatoes too, in my southern England home. And then by the end of the seventies when everyone started to go a bit aspirational in their cooking, it quietly evolved into spag bol (yes, there was a time when spag bol was a bit aspirational).

All it took was the addition of a can of tomatoes (don't think we got as far as garlic), a subtraction of the potatoes, and a handful of the enormously long spaghetti that they sold in those days ... and bingo the old 'mince' dinner was all foreign and special.

Did you have to sit at the dinner table staring at it while being lectured about starving children in India/China?

Yes! Though it was Africa in our house. My Dad used to say “There are starving children in Africa who would love this” so I actually used to leave food on purpose because I thought it would be boxed up and sent to the poor starving children in Africa.

My mum wasn't scottish, but mince (and in our case it was usually left over roast beef put through a mincer as we would have the same meat stretched out over at least 4 days) boiled in gravy with onions and served with mash and baked beans (I assume to stretch it out further again) was a common feature for us. There would be leftover mash and then that would go into the next days dinner too.
And frequent lectures on eating it all as there would be children grateful for it - I quite liked the mince, but there were many things to be more scared of eating including the boiled marrow, boiled tongue, heart, and fatty lamb which featured heavily for us as dad raised at least 5 lambs a year for meat.

Yes, my parents and grandparents in Northumbria would have this regularly- not with beans and ketchup, though. My mum would make it regularly for us children too - we grew up in Yorkshire. And “starving children in Africa” was a common enough saying - though my parents wouldn’t say it.

I'm making mince and tatties for tea after reading this! Maybe with suet dumplings too seeing as the weather is shite. We have this with carrot and onion in the mince and then buttered cabbage and pickled beetroot on the side.

Stovies are different but also delicious. They have different variations depending on where you are. West coast/highland - Sliced onion and potatoes browned in dripping then wee scraps of leftover meat from the joint then the leftover gravy and cooked until tender. We rear sheep so the meat is usually lamb. In Moray and Aberdeen it was often corned beef and mashed potatoes and served with oatcakes and beetroot.

mince and tatties was a childhood meal of mine,
although not being scottish, we didnt call it that
when we went out on a day trip dm would take a flask for us to eat - so she says, i have no recollection!

I can totally relate to this! Thursday night was mince and tatties night in my house as a child. I can still smell it 🤢.

I love mince and tatties, if it’s on the specials board in the pub I always have it. If it’s cooks with good steak mince it’s delicious, in our part of Scotland (ABERDEEN) with also have it with SKIRLE. Mince tatties and skirle.

Not detailing the thread ....but if you do find Heinz baked beans in your local Scottish store, make sure you do NOT buy anything um weird.

No 'reduced' salt or sugar etc.
They taste crap. Bland.

No 'BBQ' flavour or anything. You want the original.

I would serve as beans on toast. I would butter a slice of white bread toasted and serve next to the heated beans.

Many people just dollop the beans on top of dry toast. To me they should be separate so the bean juices don't make the crisp toast go all mushy.

Oh and if you do make mince you may want to try making a shepherds pie with it.

Cook mince. Put it into an oven proof dish. Spread a layer of mash potatoes over the top. Put under the grill for a few minutes until potato goes crispy. Serve.

I need to go downstairs and take some mince out of the freezer for tomorrow now after reading this.

I made it this week. With quorn and mealie jimmy, it’s the only way to make quorn palatable. Very old fashioned, very tasty.

We often had mince and tatties as children. Sounds more like poor cooking skills if it was revolting. Unless you’re one of those people who idolises the traditional food of working class Italians/Indians/Iraqis etc but finds British working class food tasteless and appalling?

Not a UK thing, never heard of this in south wales. Sound grim tbh. The gravy & mince recipes sound fine though but boiled mince 🤮

"Mind, there's an egg in it" I don't know why that tickled me so much! 🤣

I'm in Lancashire and yes we had it for tea often
More like cottage pie mince though so quite thick with gravy, with mash and extra veg and buttered bread and brown sauce on the side

IMO the beans would have been added to stretch it, as can be necessary if you are feeding a family on a budget. They are often given to children, who are developing favourite foods.

Baked beans used to be advertised as "more protein per £ than steak" which is true, but not really comparable.

I understand that during and after WW2 when food was rationed and scarce in UK, tinned baked beans were a very popular and inexpensive food, and UK is still the biggest consumer of them. They are not popular in other parts of Europe.

They are nowhere near as good (or as sugary) as Boston Beans in US.

(Meat was rationed until 1954 because most of our shipping had been sunk and our foreign currency reserves spent.)

East coast of Scotland here. Mince and tatties (no beans) is a Davy meal in this house probably had once a week. I'm 49 for context, it was once a week for me when growing up too but back then I didn't like mince so I would just have a massive plate of mashed tatties

Oh god that's giving me childhood flashbacks. Definitely a common dish in Scotland back in the 80s/90s.

My mum was awful at making it and I just assumed for years that I hated it. Then I was served it at a friend's house one time and it tasted amazing!

I'm not Scottish. I'm from the North West of England and mince and mash or mince wirh boiled potatoes ( though I do mine in the slow cooker) is a staple dish. Not with beans though, usually carrots and peas and occasionally other veg.

Maybe the Scots gparents experienced deprivation both there and here? They’d have come to the states between the 2 world wars. I know its said poverty was extreme during wwii, was it esp bad in the uk in wwi? I’ll have a little google about that.

I’m wondering if the baked beans was a cost saving addition? Esp since it doesn’t seem to be made that way by most uk folk, if mumsnet is my barometer.

And yes, boston baked beans are very very good. Would be an abomination to add to this dish tho.

No not at all, I’m not judging british cooking here, just wondering if this was a bastardized dish or authentic. I think its the former, started out as proper and either available ingredients, personal taste or something corrupted it in my family. It was one of very few things my father cooked, he enjoyed it a lot. My brothers all ate it, come to think though I don’t recall my mother eating it (it was probably made when she wasn’t home to cook)

I should contact my cousins and ask if their dad, my dad’s brother, also made it.

In my family it was basically the inside of a cottage pie, minus the veg, served with mash. So slightly crap version of cottage pie. I hate mince but my mum absolutely loves it.