IN a life of overwhelming choices, sometimes the appeal of the familiar, the comforting, endures—like the relief of sitting down with a good friend over a cup of tea after the enforced excitement of a week of cocktail parties. Sometimes, the simplest pleasures are the most precious ones. Step forward, the oatcake.
For centuries, the oatcake was part of the staple diet of not only the Scottish Highlands, but also of the Pennines and Lake District, essentially regions where the climate was too wet and cold successfully to grow any cereals other than oats. Hunger, thrift and necessity produced the oatcakes that we continue to enjoy today as a quick snack, as something to go with lunch or dinner or to serve —all gussied up—as an hors d’oeuvre.
Oatcakes are made with few ingredients—oats, salt and water, with sometimes a pinch of sugar and a little fat., first published in 1929, F. Marian McNeill, also describes making oatcakes with whey in place of the fat and water. Bicarbonate of soda was traditionally used as a leavening agent, but, it needs an acid to activate it, so baking powder, which does not, works just as well.
