They are highly spiced. It helps to disguise the taste of dubious meat products.
The pastry is sharp edged, making them a vicious projectile at football matches.
They are wicked! In the Middle Ages, the Scottish church frowned upon them, deeming them to be luxurious, decadent and (worst of all)– mimicking English pretension.
They are healthy. The raised crust allows for fillings such as baked beans, ensuring you get your daily five.
My mother would drool at the very thought of a hot Scotch pie. As a child, she lived in the little town of Rainbow, in the far north west of Victoria, Australia. When her uncle arrived by train from Melbourne with a tray of Scotch pies the whole town was amazed and jealous. Take that, you Aussie sheep farmers, we Scots know how to turn succulent lamb into calorie laden fast food.
As a child, I lived on a tiny Hebridean island, where Scotch pies were as exotic as in Rainbow. There too, a relative made a welcome arrival, triumphantly bearing a supply of the delicacies from a mainland bakery. I must have been very young, because when the pies were put in the oven to heat, I was dragged off for an afternoon nap and promised my pie would be ready for me when I woke. Oh, my perfidious siblings! Oh, my cry of anguish when I woke to find my precious pie has already been eaten! Oh, the damage done to my relationship with food! From then on, I have had to eat every available scrap lest my big brothers get there first.
I don’t eat Scotch pies anymore. I once choked on a sharp edge of the pastry, but my abhorrence of the snacks was sealed when I made the mistake of looking inside. The revolting grey mass at the centre put me off for life.