Ode to the perfect tuna sandwich

When we were on our honeymoon in Scotland, we spent the second night of our trip on the island of Skye. I wish we would have had a little more time there to explore the place. It was a picture-perfect quaint fishing town. (I had to find this pic on Google. Our only pictures were taken on my non-digital camera at the time). Once you are in town, many of the buildings are painted in pastels along the main walkway. We had a terrific dinner in a little pub, where I ate the best fish and chips I've ever eaten. The next day we were off to Inverness, which involved half a day of driving and going right along Loch Ness. After leaving our bed and breakfast we decided to stop at the local bakery to pack up some sandwiches, chips and cookies to have a picnic somewhere along the way.

We ordered tuna salad sandwiches, and then forgot to say "crisps" instead of "chips", which of course means french fries anywhere in the UK. That caused a bit of confusion and several looks from the ladies behind the counter like they were used to dealing with rather slow Americans. We started our drive and eventually made it to Loch Ness, where there were several places to stop and take in the view, as it is much more enormous than you might think from watching those shows on Discovery. We found a nice spot, and even though it had started sprinkling, we opened up the hatchback and laid out our picnic. Those sandwiches were so delicious, I can't even put it into words. They had added red onion, and celery, and maybe cucumber, but I couldn't figure out anything else. While we were eating, a gentleman drove up, got out of his car in full kilt regalia, and began playing the bagpipes. I'm not making this up! It's a big tourist thing, and you are expected to leave some money in the hat he places in front of him. The whole experience was so surreal and special, but when we talk about it or tell the story to people to this day, the thing we rave on about the most are those tuna sandwiches.

I've tried to replicate the flavor. I've added the three ingredients I figured out that day, plus I play around with others, but I can never get them to taste as good. I know that some of this is location related. Things just taste better on vacation than they do back in normal, hum-drum life. But as I was planning how to mix it up and try again for dinner tonight, it hit me that the bakery may have had access to fresh tuna straight out of the ocean. Or even if they used canned tuna, a can of tuna from Scotland is probably a heck of alot better tasting than a can of Chicken of the Sea! So I think I will give up on my quest to taste the perfect tuna sandwich again, unless someday we find ourselves back on the Isle of Skye, where I will then flat out ask them what they do to them to get them to taste so good. And by the way, whoever thought of that name, Chicken of the Sea? Probably a rather slow American.