{"id":3089,"date":"2010-09-30T06:33:54","date_gmt":"2010-09-30T10:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3089"},"modified":"2018-08-05T22:20:06","modified_gmt":"2018-08-06T02:20:06","slug":"thursday-september-30-2010-%e2%80%95-orkney-breakfast-orkney-bannock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3089","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, September 30, 2010 \u2015 Orkney Breakfast, Orkney Bannock"},"content":{"rendered":"

Break\u00adfast in Kirk\u00adwall was deli\u00adcious, but it was a veg\u00ade\u00adtar\u00adi\u00adan\u2019s night\u00admare. Fried eggs, a huge beef sausage much meati\u00ader than an Eng\u00adlish banger, a slab of blood pud\u00adding, some fried toma\u00adtoes, and toast. Noth\u00ading even remote\u00adly green.  I wan\u00addered through a super\u00admar\u00adket, look\u00ading for some\u00adthing to take with me on the com\u00ading day\u2019s jour\u00adney to the Isle of Rousay. The pro\u00adduce sec\u00adtion was tiny, and most\u00adly filled with turnips and pota\u00adtoes. There were some sad-look\u00ading heads of let\u00adtuce that looked like they had been used for bal\u00adlast in a Liber\u00adian freighter, and some cab\u00adbages. Like the Cana\u00addi\u00adan Arc\u00adtic, the Orkneys seems to be a realm of carnivores. <\/span><\/p>\n

But, pass\u00ading a bak\u00adery, I spot\u00adted what I knew from lit\u00ader\u00adary sources was the sig\u00adna\u00adture link between the land of my birth and this leg\u00adendary arch\u00adi\u00adpel\u00adago: <\/span>ban\u00adnock<\/em><\/span>. It\u2019s a sweet quick-bread that can be oven-baked, or made in a pan. Ban\u00adnock was, for cen\u00adturies, a sta\u00adple food in Cana\u00adda, espe\u00adcial\u00adly in the Arc\u00adtic, the Sub\u00adarc\u00adtic, and the West. It is still <\/span>the<\/em><\/span> tra\u00addi\u00adtion\u00adal M\u00e9tis and Native Cana\u00addi\u00adan treat. Among the Plains Cree and Plains Ojib\u00adway, it is still a near-oblig\u00ada\u00adtory for\u00admu\u00adla of polite\u00adness for a guest to ask a host \u201cdid your grand\u00admoth\u00ader make this ban\u00adnock?\u201d There must be a thou\u00adsand recipes for it, and in Cana\u00adda, all sorts of things are thrown into it: blue\u00adber\u00adries, saska\u00adtoon\u00adber\u00adries, cran\u00adber\u00adries, even tree moss. The Innu\u00adit fry it up greasi\u00adly. The M\u00e9tis call it \u201c<\/span>galette<\/em><\/span>,\u201d the Swampy Cree call it \u201c<\/span>alakon\u00ada\u00adhow<\/em><\/span>,\u201d and every\u00adone calls it deli\u00adcious. In the bush, I\u2019ve seen it cooked coiled on a stick. The camp\u00adfire ver\u00adsion is tra\u00addi\u00adtion\u00adal\u00adly made by prop\u00adping a skil\u00adlet ver\u00adti\u00adcal\u00adly close to the flames, so that it is \u201cbaked\u201d by radi\u00adant and reflect\u00aded heat. And there, in a Kirk\u00adness bak\u00adery win\u00addow, was a pile of it, fresh\u00adly made. I zipped in and bought some to try right away, and more to feed me on my journey. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Orkney ban\u00adnock was absolute\u00adly iden\u00adti\u00adcal to the most tra\u00addi\u00adtion\u00adal kind I\u2019ve tast\u00aded in the Arc\u00adtic, at Pow-Wows, and most recent\u00adly in a Dream Tipi. I dis\u00adap\u00adprove of the mod\u00adern trend of sub\u00adsti\u00adtut\u00ading \u201call-pur\u00adpose\u201d wheat flour for the tra\u00addi\u00adtion\u00adal tangy bar\u00adley flour. It was utter\u00adly scrump\u00adtious. I brought noth\u00ading else for the day except a dried sausage, so that my adven\u00adture on Rousay would be proven\u00addered much like a <\/span>voyageur<\/em><\/span>\u2019s canoe trip was fueled by ban\u00adnock and pemmican.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Break\u00adfast in Kirk\u00adwall was deli\u00adcious, but it was a veg\u00ade\u00adtar\u00adi\u00adan\u2019s night\u00admare. Fried eggs, a huge beef sausage much meati\u00ader than an Eng\u00adlish banger, a slab of blood pud\u00adding, some fried toma\u00adtoes, and toast. Noth\u00ading even remote\u00adly green. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-aq-blog-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3089"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7776,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3089\/revisions\/7776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}