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For the Love of Sheilings….

As a child I loved Johanna Spyri’s ‘Heidi’ the story of a young Swiss girl’s life on the alm. When I give presentations and mention the role sheilings played in our food heritage, many look questioningly, and I say, ‘Think Heidi!’ Unless you have an interest in Scottish food culture, a diminishing number of folk have heard of sheilings these days…but this need not be so. With supermarkets and airfreight ensuring a constant supply of out-of-season-plastic-wrapped food to our doorstep we are in danger of losing our appreciation of the flavours and scents of seasonal delicacies and knowledge of our food culture. Transhumance was an integral part of that, where farmers moved their animals to sum