We’ve been feeling a renewed urgency to preserve and share our families’ recipes, inspired by Anna Francese Gass, author of Heirloom Kitchen: Heritage Recipes & Family Stories from the Tables of Immigrant Women. For her blog and book, Anna gathered precious recipes from the troves of immigrant women, cooking elbow to elbow in their home kitchens to document every smidgen of spice and coffee cupful of flour that in many cases had never been recorded on the page. We’re thrilled she will join us for January 2021’s installment of the Salt + Spine Cookbook Club Virtual Dinner Party.

Our own heritage recipe journey tugs us back to Scotland, whence both of our family trees branched across the Atlantic generations ago. One of our most cherished treats is from Chris’ Paisley-born maternal grandfather, who arrived in the U.S. as a child with his mother’s recipe for Scotch Scones in hand. Each child in our household has completed the right of passage that is patting (& sneaking tastes of) the tangy dough into a disc before cutting into the familiar treasured triangles. Our youngest, Charlotte, often delights us with a batch on a happy weekend morning.

Scotch Scones differ from others in that they are cooked on a griddle instead of baking in the oven. They are golden brown on the outside, soft in the middle, and not too sweet. Like other scones, they make an ideal canvas for dabs of butter and the season’s best jam.