Oatcakes are the perfect vehicle for cheese. They are practically enigmatic, inspiring great joy and a loyal following amongst a surprisingly large cross-section of the population. Some of our customers’ favourite products, The Trading Post has recently received a significant delivery of Nairn’s most popular oatcakes: rough oatcakes, fine oatcakes, gluten-free oatcakes and super seeded oatcakes.
Whilst it is my duty to tell the world, through the medium of the newsletter, that oatcakes are (A.) back available on The Trading Post website and (B.) awesome as part of a fully-laden cheese board, all the other information I have about oatcakes and their crucial position in global diets and/or economic systems is somewhat nebulous. Therefore here is a list of facts, possible facts and assumptions about oat cakes that you may or may not want to know…
Seen as a typically Scottish food, there is some evidence to suggest that oatcakes have been prevalent in Scotland since the Roman era. There is further suggestion that, north of Hadrian’s wall, oat cakes are an acceptable substitution for toast at breakfast.
Little-known fact, if you eat oatcakes on a boat, they technically become boatcakes.
Staffordshire oatcakes are much more like pancakes, containing much more wheat and being wildly different from Scottish oatcakes like Nairn’s.
Jimmy McGriff’s song “Fat Cakes” which contains arguably one of the best bass lines in history, can be easily repurposed by replacing the only lyric, “fat cakes,” with “oat cakes.” This could improve your experience of oatcakes, whether eaten at breakfast or not. It also may not.
As mentioned repeatedly, oatcakes are great with cheese. You can also top them with sweet things, like peanut butter or jam. Some people make oatcakes into egg white sandwiches (by cooking egg whites and placing them between two oat cakes). You can probably top them with most things, as they are the ideal vector for savoury and sweet flavours. The internet will give you recipes for avocado, ham and carrot-topped oatcakes, or Pesto and goat’s cheese (these could be called goatcakes), or olive, sun-dried tomato and courgette. Honestly, if it’s food, it probably goes with oatcakes.
David Cameron (the former PM one) once said that his favourite type of cake was an oatcake... This sounds a bit like saying that your favourite type of pie is a 'pizza pie' or your favourite horse is a 'horsechestnut', but fine...
Whether you want super seedy oatcakes, fine oatcakes, rough-textured oatcakes or coeliac-friendly gluten-free oatcakes, The Trading Post has them. Buy them now. Then buy some cheese. Then buy a suitable bottle of wine. Potentially get into a boat and listen to Jimmy McGriff. Then enjoy the entire scenario to its fullest.
