When I read about what to take up Kilimanjaro with me, sweets and snacks seem to feature large. People get enormously hungry at times while walking, so they welcome them then and, conversely, when it becomes difficult to eat much at all at altitude, it seems to be easier to force down sweets and snacks than whole meals. It seems that people stuff their bags with Mars Bars, Twix, Snickers etc – things that I love, but absolutely never normally allow myself to eat, because of the calories they contain. But, it seems, we will have carte blanche in August to stuff ourselves with such delights. Given that I have been really careful with what I have eaten since the start of this adventure – I have lost a stone and a half and my BMI is now bang in the middle of the “healthy weight” category – I am looking forward to a bit of a blow out on forbidden foods.
I have always had a sweet tooth: I am Scottish, after all! Scotland has a higher rate of consumption of sugar per head of population than most countries in the world, and also one of the lowest for eating fruit and veg. One of my earliest memories is eating Hills’ Hawick Balls, a delicacy which used to be produced within a hundred yards of where I lived as a small child in the Scottish Borders. I think that the Hill family were actually related to us: John Hill, who owned the “factory” was possibly married to one of my paternal grandfather’s sisters. As small children we would be allowed to go into the building where the famous balls were produced. It was in a building like a very large shed up an alley way adjoining Uncle John’s house. That was where Uncle John, Uncle Fred and Uncle David worked. I hasten to add that all of them were probably not relatives. We had dozens of what we came to call “phoney” aunts and uncles, when we were children. All of my parents’ friends were known by their first name preceded by “uncle” or “auntie”. In these days: it was not considered proper for children to address adults just by their first name, but too formal to call them “Mr” or “Mrs”, if they were close family friends.
We could smell the sugary minty smell as we went up the alley and it was quite overpowering in the shed. Big copper pots of the sugary syrup would be bubbling away, and when ready, the contents would be poured out on to the marble slabs and pulled out into enormous golden brown snakes. A length of snake would then be placed between wooden boards, which would be moved about for a while, then the brown Hawick balls would suddenly appear, when the board was removed. It seemed like magic, and I loved standing watching the men work.
The other delicacy produced by the Hills in the same big shed was meat paste. This was made on the other side of the space. There was a fridge full of animal pieces, which were somehow reduced to this delicacy. All of the town’s food shops stocked the meat paste: it had a great reputation locally. This was long before anyone knew or cared what the ingredients were! The paste was sold in white waxed carton without any writing on at all. I have got a very clear memory of being in the factory one day watching the balls being made, when Uncle Fred came up to me and told me to put out my hand, and when I did, he placed a cow’s eye in the palm of my hand. I was all set to take it home with me as a bit of a curiosity, but my mother insisted on me returning it to him, before I was allowed to leave. She must have been appalled! So I guess that’s the kind of thing the delicious meat paste was made out of. I doubt there were any Heath and Safety inspections then, or concern about sweets being made within feet of raw meat processing.
Hawick Balls have quite a provenance. Bill McLaren was a famous rugby commentator, who was famously never without a “poke” (bag) of the traditional sweeties named after his home town. He used them to start conversations, elicit information and garner gossip that would then be added to his ‘big sheets’ – the detailed information he used to support his rugby commentary. Despite McLaren’s deserved reputation for impartiality, however, the members of the England team were apparently never invited to partake of his sweeties.
Now produced in the town of Greenock, legend has it that Hawick Balls were first made in the town in the 1850s by one Jessie McVittie. She used to ‘pull’ her boiled sugar mix by hanging it over a nail and allowing gravity to stretch it out. Although the exact recipe remains secret, today the “bools” are still made in open copper pans, which caramelise the sugar, with oil of peppermint providing a minty hint. The resulting sweet looks a bit like a pickled onion (or, according to some, a sheep’s testicle). The flavour is buttery and actually quite grown-up, with a hard crunch setting them apart from other traditional sweeties from Borders towns such as Jethart Snails, Berwick Cockles and Galashiels Soor Plooms, which have a rock-like texture.
It seems that Chay Blyth, another local lad, took some bools round the world with him when he made records sailing in his yacht and some have been buried at the South Pole by a local explorer. However, I can’t find any record of the Balls having been taken up a mountain. I wonder if I should take some up Kilimanjaro with me? I dare say I might make myself popular among some of the porters and guides if I did take a tin or two along.
