4: Vacation Minisode + Scottish Food Highlights (w. Podcastica Friends)

[00:00:00] Lucie, please do not cut the sound of you slapping me. Make audio. Okay. Well, hello everybody. We're here for what I think people call a very special episode of The Bear Cast. Oh, it's special. Yes. And Lucie, do we have anyone else with us right now?

[00:00:40] I can't see anyone. No, we do. We have Jason, Karen and David with us. We're sitting in the Highlands of Scotland looking out at some pine trees having just eaten a very traditional Scottish curry. Which is a consolation because the three of them have been very, very patient

[00:00:57] about the horrible weather that they've been forced to endure. Yeah. And what we thought we would do as we're obviously on vacation this week, rather than try and cram in a full episode

[00:01:08] of The Bear Cast, we thought we'd offer you a mini-sode about Scottish cuisine. And then next week we'll be covering both episodes three and four in a bumper episode to make up for it. So

[00:01:18] episode three doors and episode four violet will be covered next week. But if you want to hang with us for a little bit, we're going to talk Scottish food. Yeah. So this is a top tip for

[00:01:27] everybody not just in cooking but in life when you have to fudge something, just pass it off as an innovation. Yeah. That's cool and very funny. She did one where we just yell at each other the whole

[00:01:39] time. Yeah, we love them. Fuck you cousin. Fuck you. Fuck you cousin. So should we ask our guests to introduce themselves on the rare chance that we have listeners to this podcast who don't

[00:01:51] already know who these people are? There is no one in the world who has heard of you and I and has not heard of these three people. That's true. But just in case we'll pass over to Jason

[00:02:00] to introduce everyone. I'm Jason. I mean, we all started podcasting, well, we've been podcasting together on The Walking Dead. I think you brought it up a few times. I think so. Let it rip. Yeah,

[00:02:16] you did. You did. Karen? Hello, I'm Karen. The instigator of The Walking Dead cast, one of the OGs. Yeah, back in the day. Back in the day, back in the day and David is also here. David,

[00:02:29] you've done some podcasting for the network as well. Hi there. I have done some podcasting with Jason and with others at this table. I think my last foray was squid game. Good choice. Civil war maybe? Different ways of cooking squid. Yes, exactly. And squid, one of these

[00:02:51] Scottish foods we'll be talking about now. That was a beautiful segue. We've never segued like that. We've never segued. We're rusty, we're not as smooth as these guys. So food. Food, yeah. Other scooters much better than this. So the question we asked

[00:03:09] our guests, which is really just me and Peter every week is what was the best thing you ate this week? I mean, I'm not just saying this but the tastiest and best thing I ate this week

[00:03:19] was the deconstructed moussaka that Peter made. Oh, incredible. Yeah, fantastic. Jason, your payment will be coming shortly and that was by definition Scottish food. It was. I've been listening to you guys all your episodes and it's been a blast hearing you cook and it's such a great edition.

[00:03:41] We never did anything like that in podcasting ever before and then we got to witness it and it was real. They weren't just ordering out and pretending. Yeah, there's a lot of yelling,

[00:03:49] fuck you, fuck you. Nothing of the sort. I threw a fork, it got messy, there were tears. I drove the rental into the side of the house like, you know how it be. But I don't even know for sure what was

[00:04:02] in it. I wasn't really that curious. I was just devouring it and loving it. So. Do you want to talk us through it a little bit? We can link to the recipe. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I

[00:04:11] can't take any credit from this. This is a recipe from one of the Contoir Lebanese books. So they tell us that this is how you might make something like a moussaka in Lebanon. Those of you who enjoy moussaka, certainly in Britain, you'd most commonly be familiar with

[00:04:28] a dish that uses lamb mince and uses something a little bit like a bechamel to create a cheese sauce on the top. Eggs in it, right? With eggs in it. Yeah, absolutely. This is much simpler.

[00:04:41] This is aubergines which you cook separately in a tomato sauce and also grilled. Got eggplant. Very good point. Yes, eggplant. And we will come on to the garbanzo beans shortly because I'm

[00:04:52] just proud that I know to say that. Yeah. And you create a very simple series of layers. You have a tomato sauce on the bottom, some fresh tomatoes, some chickpeas, then some grilled or

[00:05:05] broiled slices of aubergine on the top. And then you make a dressing with tahini and yogurt and salt. And I think we fit it a little bit of garlic in there as well.

[00:05:14] Yeah, and you make a nice rice with it. Yes. It's a rice that when we feed it to friends who have relatives or family from further east, very good, than we would, than we are. And it's

[00:05:26] like, it's very rich. It's like vermicelli strands and fried in a little bit of butter. And then you mix it through the rice. It's very good. I think we have two takeaways from that kind of recipe. The first is, aubergine is great. Eggplant is great. Yeah, love it.

[00:05:39] It just soaks up anything you expose it to, especially oil. You can just keep putting oil into it. For me, eggplant is one of those foods that if it's not prepared the way I like

[00:05:49] it, I find it gross. Oh, I hate it. It's spongy. It's slimy. Yeah. Slimy. If it's done well, then yeah. Yeah, it can be great. And I think most British people I know

[00:06:02] including me are frightened of making rice. Yeah, we all get rice cooked well. We all get really stressed and then do a terrible job of it. So many times I have just covered the worktop in

[00:06:12] water when it's boiled over. Yeah, but when you were in Thailand for a bit, they were like, just get a rice cooker. Just get a rice cooker. That's our top tip listeners.

[00:06:20] I remember your mum was talking to the chef like, but how do you make a rice so exquisite? And they're like rice cooker. It's just a rice cooker. Just buy a rice cooker, literally buy

[00:06:28] a rice cooker. So we didn't have a rice cooker. So you did a very good job despite the trying circumstances. Yeah. And I think it's satisfying to make something for those who don't know.

[00:06:41] Most things I'm certainly a meat eater and I am not often confident with vegetarian food, but it's so satisfying when you make a dish and it doesn't feel like you've compromised in

[00:06:53] any way. You've just made something that stands totally on its own. And I like that recipe a lot for that. Before we move on, can you tell our listeners how your mum got you to eat aubergine slash eggplant as a kid? Yes. Those of you considering having children,

[00:07:09] you have a token that will work perfectly on children of a certain age. It worked on me like a charm for decades. The first time that I was exposed to eggplant, my mum told me,

[00:07:22] this is dinosaur food. This is what dinosaurs eat. And at that sweet spot and that developmental stage when you're really pumped about dinosaurs, you're going to get really excited about whatever

[00:07:32] this plant is. It doesn't need to be eggplant. It could be broccoli. It could be kale. Pick one otherwise boring plant until you lie to your children. Don't tell lie to your children that the dinosaurs liked it. They broccoli and eggplant. Oh yeah. Yeah, I love that.

[00:07:48] And you know what? They love broccoli. So Karen, Scotland can be a little bit challenging for vegetarians, I think. I think most of our national dishes are meat deep fried in some way, shape or form. There's a reason our health outcomes

[00:08:04] suck but we die happy. We die happy. Well, how great is it to be around friends who like support your dietary weirdness and decide to cook something that's vegetarian? It's incredible. I'm the lone vegetarian at the table, although David sort of trends that way because he

[00:08:21] lives with me. But I've been a vegetarian for a long, long time and it's not always easy. And my friends and family in the past haven't been always as supportive as they maybe could be. So

[00:08:35] it's been delightful to be around people who are that supportive and wonderful. And actually Scotland's been very vegetarian friendly, like surprisingly so. One of the great things that I've had here, one of the national dishes of Scotland is of course, haggis. And you may think

[00:08:55] how in the world are they going to do a vegetarian haggis? And I'm telling you, I'm here to say the vegetarian haggis that I've had was exquisite. It was at the Whiskey Society in Edinburgh

[00:09:08] and nothing like sharing a little wee dram of whiskey with friends. And then this place also had incredible food and they brought it out and I was like, I want to try it. I've actually heard good things about vegetarian haggis and it was surprisingly, shockingly fantastic. And

[00:09:29] I would, I'm going to miss it when I go back and I'm going to try to eat it in Glasgow. The trick with haggis is it's actually a little spicy. You don't expect it because haggis, for the

[00:09:40] uninitiated, is traditionally lots of bits of sheep that you otherwise don't want to eat. It boiled in its sheep stomach for I would say an ungodly amount of time. With grains. With oatmeal. Yeah,

[00:09:51] so there's fiber. There's fiber in there. I thought it was going to, because I had the regular one and it's heart, liver and lungs. And I thought it would be chewy and sausagey and greasy. Yeah, absolutely. But it was more of a crumbly, dry texture and

[00:10:06] light, lighter than I thought. And it was good. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, it's the spices that do it. So to make it veggie, what I've mostly seen is like lentils, black beans, things like that

[00:10:17] and doing the same kind of seasoning but cooking the lentils and beans that way. Yeah, well you, for context listeners, Lucy was a vegetarian for quite a long time. So you

[00:10:25] experienced both sides of it. It did. And I think you experienced Scotland at a time when it was there were fewer options for vegetarians. Yeah, I ate a lot of pasta with cheese.

[00:10:35] It's classic. It's a classic. Yeah. I would say I've noticed, like we give Scottish food a bad press that there's a lot of really innovative cuisine happening in Scotland and we've really noticed going around the islands and the more remote parts that we've been able to get decent

[00:10:49] food which for a long time, not because people in the highlands and islands can't cook food and not that at all but just because there wasn't the infrastructure for like bigger cafes and restaurants and stuff. And I haven't felt that so much this trip which was

[00:11:00] nice. Yeah, I think tourism is a complicated thing but I think as more people have been going to places that's created room to support more restaurants and more cafes and I think the diversity has really expanded in some of the places we've gone. That being said,

[00:11:17] vegetarian haggis has been a standby for a long time. You could count on that. At least since 1992. David, you're kind of in the middle here. You're eating a bit of veggie, eating a bit of meat and fish here and there. What have you enjoyed?

[00:11:32] Yeah, well first let me say I really enjoyed the vegetarian haggis. I thought it was excellent and was a little surprised. I liked the others at the texture and what it tasted like but

[00:11:43] really, really enjoyable. So I don't eat a lot of meat very rarely. Eat meat now and that's has a lot to do with Karen and I being together for so long but I do still eat fish. So I'll concentrate on the fish side of things.

[00:11:58] Well, Peter's grinning. He loves the fish side of things. And I've always really enjoyed seafood and coming from California where it's very good but a different, much different style and different kinds of fish that we get there.

[00:12:11] We did a little hiking trip in the area of Fife which is the east coast of Scotland near culminating in St Andrews and the first night of that trip. We were in a small town called Lower

[00:12:22] Largo so that was my first chance to try Collins Skink. Oh, Collins Skink. I'm a late in life Collins Skink fan. I used to think it sounded like the most horrid thing in the world and then a couple

[00:12:35] years ago I tried it because Peter pointed out Lucy it's essentially Cullen Chowder and I was like I like Chowder. Yeah, I think they've got a lot in common. I think we are quite biased but

[00:12:45] I feel like you're sitting comfortably in between the two soups, David. Yeah. Where did you end up? And I like Cullen Chowder in the various styles that it's made in America but I have to say I like

[00:12:57] Collins Skink more. Collins Skink at least this version of it was more about the high quality fish which in this case was smoked. Oh yes. And it was a little less of a creamy thick heavy

[00:13:12] soup and still potatoes and some of the same ingredients you'd find in Cullen Chowder but I would say a higher quality of fish and less sort of heavy filler ingredients. But it was just

[00:13:23] terrific. Collins Skink is one thing I go through phases of wanting to learn to kick it but I somehow think if I knew how to kick it I would just make it all the time and then

[00:13:32] I'd get bored of it so I'm like I actively refuse to learn how to make it but near where my dad lives they did, there's like the Collins Skink Championships in Scotland. Someone that he knows

[00:13:43] vaguely what with they had to do like a gentrified Collins Skink and a traditional and she won in both categories. Wow. I believe the gentrified one featured pan fried capers. That doesn't sound

[00:13:56] good at all. That sounds amazing. And Cullen is not just the name of the vampires from Twilight, it's a little town on the very northeast of Scotland that was famous and is famous for fishing

[00:14:09] so Collins Skink was originated in Cullen and that's why it's called that. Skink I'm not sure about the etymology of Skink but just sounds cool. That's what we should have called our cat. I think I love Cullen. That is a great idea. So now we're progressing up

[00:14:26] coast towards St Andrews. Yeah. Can't come here as a fish eater without having fish and chips. Of course. The national dish of the UK. Not that there aren't any good fish and chips in

[00:14:36] the United States but it's not our strength the way it is yours. So we chose the Anstra other fish bar for that which is UK and perhaps a world famous. I maintain the best one. Peter

[00:14:48] and I disagree on this, I think it's the best. There's an east coast, west coast. There's a debate going on there. But no, it's well known to be. It's in the conversation.

[00:14:55] It's well renowned. It was quite crowded but quick and lived up to its billing so that was fantastic. Amazing. And then thirdly, pardon the digression but to talk about the third fish dish I have

[00:15:08] to talk about a vegetarian dish which is wanted to try some of the pies. Savory pies. Which is not a dish Americans very regularly eat. So when we're in St Andrews, an amazing club called The Criterion, we had this butternut squash pie with some other vegetables

[00:15:31] and that had a true pastry top. And it was delicious. But then when we were all in Edinburgh, I wanted to try a different kind of pie. So this was at the Greyfriars Bobby pub

[00:15:44] in Edinburgh famous for being next to the Bobby statue. That's a whole other story. But so this was a fish pie, so various kinds of fish and very different from the other pies.

[00:15:54] So it was a mashed potato based and I would say a cheddar crust over the top, quite filling. It really was a meal full meal or maybe two meals worth. I ordered that too and I was hoping for a crusted fish pie and it was more of a

[00:16:11] shepherd's pie but it was still really good. It's a misleading name. That's quite a tragedy. Your mum makes a mean fish pie actually. There's a very good Delia Smith recipe we could link to in the show notes but yeah, you're right. It's not a lidded pie traditionally.

[00:16:27] It's topped with mash. You quite like it. I enjoy a fish pie. I think it's a hot weather kind of, a cold weather kind of meal I would say. But you leave it feeling full but not gross.

[00:16:39] I feel like with fish pie you're like, oh I'm full of potato and fish and it's nice. Yeah, I didn't eat a whole pile of steak. Yeah exactly. My kidneys don't hurt.

[00:16:47] It's that funny thing that I feel like we agreed that we would each be good at either a sweet or savory but no one can be good at both. Yeah, so in Britain we're all about the savory pies.

[00:16:57] Yeah. But we covet deeply the American and Canadian fruit pies. So let's have fruit pie and a diner with a... Hop a coffee. Yes, that was a glorious experience. Your best agent Cooper. Yeah.

[00:17:13] Karen, I don't know if I want to bring it up one year but you had a traumatic culinary experience in St Andrews. You were attacked. Oh we have to talk about this. Oh the incident.

[00:17:29] Everyone seems to have repressed this. Yes, yes. We were sitting on a little grassy knoll, a grassy knoll is where it happened and I was attacked from behind. It came from behind. It just completed a 10 mile hike. Just completed a 10 mile hike.

[00:17:46] We deserved our meal. We deserved our meal. We had these gorgeous cheese toasties and this one was sort of an upscale. It had goat cheese. It's the sandwich. Which is yeah, grilled sandwich and it had goat cheese and it had onions that were

[00:18:04] sort of caramelized and it had a little bit of arugula which I think here you call... Rocket. Rocket, yeah. And it was just absolutely perfect. So we had taken our... We'd heard that seagulls were a problem in St Andrew actually all up and down the 5th coast

[00:18:22] and so we were very, very careful and David's like, I wonder what the story is really with these seagulls? And so we went and we found a park bench. We sat on the park bench and split this gorgeous

[00:18:35] cheese toastie. We're starving. We've got our little drinks. We've got our little half of the cheese toasties. Everything is fine. I take a bite. It is as good as I dreamed. I'm like, I'm going to enjoy these cheese toasties. We look around and there's a

[00:18:48] couple seagulls around. We're thinking, well, you know, seagulls. We're okay. We're guarding it. I go to take another bite of my cheese toastie. My hand goes towards my mouth. It is about

[00:19:01] six inches away from my mouth and I'm holding it in front of me and I'm about to go in. The head's about to go and all of a sudden this blaze of white shoots across my left shoulder

[00:19:13] from behind and shoots out in front of me and I am left with nothing in my hand. And the look on my face was horror. I look at David and he's like, what? He felt it. We both felt

[00:19:30] it come by. It was like a very short little window that it had to needle, that it had to thread and it did it so beautifully. That seagull took my half of my sandwich and flew away. It was

[00:19:41] incredible. This thing was like the Concorde flying away. Yes. That's how fast it came through and I will forever wish that I had captured this on video because the stunned look on your face

[00:19:59] has your open mouth empty hand. And that seagull got 40% of the sandwich. I mean more. 45%. You've made maybe you got one bite. Oh my God. Next week we'll be envying the seagull for

[00:20:13] the next three. You guys kind of asked for it. It's like, let's go to the worst part. Juck Hughes, I'm pointing at David. I see them gathering and I wanted to see what was going on.

[00:20:27] I didn't think that was going on. Can I mention a few other things really quickly? Please do. The food that we've had has been good. Every single thing has been great. And

[00:20:36] one thing that's really struck me is when you go to what would normally be just a roadside gas market convenience store in the US with gross looking hot dogs and dried sandwiches and crusty chicken and like the same chips that you see everywhere. Yeah, it's like this delightful

[00:20:54] little chutneys and crackers and the best cheese. It's not gaudy at all. It's like you're in Mayberry or something. It's like you're in the 50s. It's out of time. And so we've had

[00:21:08] really good food at those places. And then one thing I think is kind of funny is we got what are called teacakes, which sounds like this delightful little British light thing, but actually it's a chocolate covered sugar fat bomb.

[00:21:28] And it sounds like teacakes makes you feel better about what you're eating, but it's totally delicious. I don't think it's too much. English teacake and a Scottish teacake, how they compare in terms of like content and little

[00:21:40] fat bombs. I'd be interested to know how they got to know each other. So an English teacake is something very different. Yes. And then there's the Welsh cake, which is just another thing altogether. Yes. So in many, many other parts of the UK,

[00:21:54] I think a teacake is essentially a little cake. It's not if you're flat-bun, isn't it? Imagine something like a British scone that someone had stood on. You'll be seeing roughly what you have. It's like if an English muffin and an

[00:22:08] English scone had a baby. That would be a teacake. To the people of Scotland, it's a marshmallow and a cookie covered in chocolate. Yeah. But then the Welsh and Welsh cakes, which are almost like shortbread but not quite. They're yummy.

[00:22:21] Well, cakes are really good. Is a teacake us trying to understand what a s'more is? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. And the last, I just wanted to mention too, well, it's been really fun

[00:22:33] to be on vacation with all you guys because we're all, we love food and we're just appreciating it so much together. And we also love whiskey. Oh yeah. And we've had it, we went to the, what did you say? The Whiskey Society where we got to try out

[00:22:45] these different whiskies and they don't label them. So it's all about the taste and the aroma and everything without knowing what you're getting into. And there's all different smoky, if you know anything about whiskey, some are harsher, some are

[00:22:56] more delicate. And then we went to the distillery of my favorite whiskey, Taliskur, which I discovered through those Game of Thrones whiskeys. Some of you might know about, came out a few years ago and that was so much fun to tour the whiskey place.

[00:23:09] And then we did something that maybe will regret, which is we bought a dram of the 18 year that cost about $30 for just a little shot of whiskey that we all savored together and it was sublime. And now we're like, oh, now we have to go

[00:23:25] back to the other stuff. And then today we went to another distillery, but it's been really fun because it's so fun to appreciate whiskey like that. And then you also get a little drunk and start having an even better time together.

[00:23:42] So the first day that you arrived, we had a little time to kill before Lucy and Peter arrived. So we sat in a cute little pub called the Halfway House in Edinburgh. And I asked the barkeep,

[00:24:00] asked him, hey, what do you recommend for this kind of palette? I don't really like a lot of smoky. I don't like a lot of peaty. And he said, oh, I've got you, I've got you girl.

[00:24:12] Try this. It's a 12 year old whiskey. It's from a distillery called Bonahaven. Bonahaven? Bonahaven? We've heard Bonahaven. Bonahaven. Yeah. And man, it was good. I took a picture of the label and then I think I made

[00:24:28] you try it. It was an actual item. Yeah. Not all the whiskies we had did I like, but I'd say out of maybe 12 that I've tried, I like 10 of them. Yeah. I think that's a good ratio. Yeah. It is a good ratio.

[00:24:39] David, how's your experience with whiskey been? Very enjoyable. I'm the farthest thing from an expert, but I very much enjoyed the telescope tour. The Bonahaven. Del Winnie is the distillery we visited today and we didn't take a full tour, but we did do a tasting,

[00:24:56] which included a barrel tasting of one of the whiskies. That looks, I mean, I was driving. I think that was everybody's favorite. Yeah. They paired it with chocolates. Yes. That looked like, yeah. What would you say, Peter? What was your favorite of the trip so far?

[00:25:12] Annoyingly because it's not the style I usually go for. Everyone who has too much money burning a hole in their pocket, the 18 year old telescope is pretty fabulous, but is it a curse to find out you have expensive tastes? Do you think you'll sponsor the product?

[00:25:28] Eight year old telescope. Keep coming at it. Keep coming at it. Keep coming at it. But I think we were very lucky to have Scotland's leading designated driver in you. I do like designated driving. We've also got a very shiny rental, so I've been just pretending

[00:25:40] I'm a millionaire, which is great. You do look quite fancy in it. A millionaire who chooses to chauffeur around the Highlands Islands and drink and apple ties at a distillery while other people have a whiskey taste.

[00:25:51] That's how I want to live my life. That's what I want to do. As a designated driver, what would you say is the optimum thing to be drinking while others are lightly sourced? I enjoy an apple tieser. An apple tieser is like a British version of a

[00:26:03] sparkling cider in North America. When I was little, I used to drink it to feel like a fancy lady. So today I felt like a fancy lady. Oh, a question to close on the topic of drinks.

[00:26:18] You've all tried just some of Scotland's national drink and I'm not talking whiskey, I'm talking iron brew. Love it. Love it. Love it. It's like a bubblegummy soda with a gingeriness to it. Yeah. It's the only country, one of the only countries in the world where

[00:26:35] Coca-Cola is not the top soda of choice. It's iron brew. And the secret there is that it has more sugar than gold. It's hard to do. And what is it good for? Oh, hangovers. Hangovers. There's

[00:26:48] a lovely rhythm moving back and forth between your whiskey and your iron brew. Yeah. It has to be at a very particular cold temperature we feel. Yeah, I wish I knew what that perfect temperature is,

[00:26:58] but it exists. It does exist. You know when you're having it. It's worth its weight in orange. Before we go, Lucy, can I just touch quickly on something we haven't really talked about besides

[00:27:08] the tea cake, which is dessert? Yes. I would actually love because we have a sweet tooth in Scotland. We do. We all clearly do because there's been chocolates in all of our

[00:27:17] Yeah. I'm sure. So all kinds of great desserts, but we came here excited about one in particular that not tasted before, which was sticky toffee pudding. Oh, man. I got a text from Karen just

[00:27:33] saying sticky toffee pudding with an exclamation mark. It's a great choice. It is so good. We do a good line and I think Britain as a whole. I don't think this is unique to Scotland,

[00:27:45] but Britain as a whole do a good line in a spongy, thick, wet, cakey pudding that you have with custard, ice cream or cream and sticky toffee pudding is I would say the king of those.

[00:27:58] It has dates in it. So technically it's a health. Speaking of which, for a future episode, we haven't done crannocon yet. Oh, crannocon. Crannocon is a whole lot of fun. Whipped cream, a little whiskey, soft fruit, usually raspberries and oats together and honey.

[00:28:18] It's a traditional Scottish dessert. It sounds amazing to me to try that. I'm sure we have that tomorrow. Yes, we can have that tomorrow. But only for good. What's been your favourite Scottish sweet thing apart from the sticky toffee

[00:28:31] pudding? I've really enjoyed tablet, believe it or not. It's really good. Tablet. Peter's made tablet in his time. It's kind of a... It's what happens if you make fudge and get it wrong. Yeah, it's very hard. It's quite brittle. It tends to come as a tiny cube, maybe...

[00:28:51] With a dark coffee? Maybe like half an inch, half an inch, an inch square at a stretch and you serve it with usually with a coffee after a meal. And what are the constituent ingredients of tablet? Condensed milk, butter I think and sugar. Fairy dust. And magic.

[00:29:09] Is that the butterscotch you think I would... That was something else. You got it. Did you try it? I ate a whole big honkin' thing. You ate that honkin' thing at tablet? I think a little thing left about this much.

[00:29:20] There is some left if I can't explain it. I've been gnawing on it. I mean cutting off pieces. The thing about tablet is you bite into it and you think it's going to stay hard and then it just melts. Yeah.

[00:29:30] And then it's like, oh my God, it just liquefied and it just sort of... It just... It transforms into something else inside your mouth and the taste even transforms. All of a sudden it becomes... It like the richness kind of amps up and near-head it kind of explodes.

[00:29:50] Beautiful. It has been so wonderful sharing Scotland with people. Even though we don't live here anymore, it has been so nice to share the food and the memories and the whisky and the places and we've still got more to come.

[00:30:02] We're going to be heading to Glasgow next, which is an Indian food. Indian food. Oh yeah. Amazing vegetarian food. Glasgow I think is one of the best places in Scotland for a variety of different foods because the population density is high.

[00:30:19] Yeah. And I think we feel and we're going to try and persuade our guests here that it has the most innovative food in Scotland. Yeah. We've offended everywhere except Glasgow with that statement though, haven't we? That's a good thing because guess what's happening on Thursday? Good point.

[00:30:35] We can flee before this publishes. No, we're having a listener meet up. Oh yeah. So if you're in Glasgow and want to come and either shout out us for our terrible opinions about food or come and share some tablet and whisky with us,

[00:30:49] you can find us at DRAM on Woodlands Road and you'll find out more details on the facebook.com slash podcastica group. Absolutely. It has been so lovely having this conversation with you all and we'll be back next week with a double episode of Let It Rip. Yep.

[00:31:03] And in the meantime, slangeva. Slangeva. Slangeva. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.