From: smaill@SPAMinf.ed.ac.uk   
      
   Fred J. McCall  writes:   
      
   > The Other Guy  wrote:   
   >   
   >>Buttered Partans ~ Small Pastry ~ Stewed Onions   
   >>   
   >>Partans are edible crabs, one of the few words that came into Scots (I   
   >>mean into the northern form of ‘English’ that we speak) from Gaelic.   
   We’d   
   >>certainly use the word at home. Seafood is a growing component in modern   
   >>Scots cuisine and widely available – for example, scallops (pictured   
   >>above), plus what we would have called ‘pra’ans (prawns) sometimes   
   >>referred to as Norway lobster (Nephrops) or (if posh) langoustines. And   
   >>lots more. I’m getting really hungry writing this.   
   >>   
   >   
   > Wasn't seafood historically a big part of at least some Scots' diets?   
   > I thought coastal Scots did a fair amount of fishing and traveling in   
   > small boats...   
      
   "Musselburgh" is a bit of a giveaway --   
      
   19th photos of street sellers of fish/oyster/mussel in Edinburgh:   
      
   http://people.ace.ed.ac.uk/students/s1109419/dmspsite/characters.html   
      
   pollution did for the local oyster beds in the Forth, which   
   seem to have been a food source for thousands of years, judging   
   by shell middens around the firth.   
      
   Pollution is less of a problem these days, but apparently native oysters   
   are an endangered species:   
      
   http://www.forthestuaryforum.co.uk/assets/pdf/forthsight/forthsight%20no19.pdf   
      
      
   --   
   Alan Smaill   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)