Islands in the Sun
Created | Updated Jul 11, 2003
Of Beans and Bunnos
It occured to me yesterday just how revolting that basic of modern Orkney cuisine, the tin of cold (or cauld) baked beans, was. I'm serious - we, and indeed I, do eat this stuff. Why escapes me, but there you are. Anyway, that brings us, whether neatly or not, to today's topic of Orkney food and food habits.
It is hard to think of a more typical Orkney food than the bere bunno. It's been cooked here for years - centuries. Possibly even millenia. The bunno is a sort of savoury sponge, the staple of which is the grain beremeal. I remember many years back being taken on a trip to an Orkney farm museum, and being taught how to make them in the traditional manner. Basically, you pound beremeal and any liquids you like in a bowl, mix them together and bake it over an open fire. Unappetising as it may seem, it is actually rather good - a heavy, slightly sweet bread.
It is, of course, incredibly filling. That is why it has become a staple of Orkney diet, that and its cheap ingredients. In the old Orkney, these ingredients could all be grown on your farm, with no need to buy anything. If you fancied a bit of luxury, you could spread it with butter, cream or jam, but that would be a Sunday treat.
If it was going to be a Sunday treat, however, the bunnos would have to be baked on Saturday. Orkney was, and still is to some extent, intensely religious. Therefore, no work on a Sunday - no cooking, no farming, no playing with the children. So, no English Sunday dinner for this group of islands - instead you'd have the big meal on Saturday, and eat the leftovers - your cold meat and tatties - the next day - a sort of penance for God.
Ah yes, tatties. A tattie is also traditional Orkney fare - a round yellowish root vegetable, which can be mashed, boiled, roasted, stuffed... sound familiar? Yes, 'tattie' is merely Orcadian dialect for potato (some other Scottish readers here will probably also use this - the term stretches quite far South). As an easily farmed vegetable, tatties too became staple Orkney food when they arrived in the UK.
One common tattie-based food is 'clapshot"' - mashed potato and turnip (or neeps, as we call them). Again, simple, easy to make, cheap and filling - all the qualities needed to feed people on an island. And, again, more can be added to relieve the monotony - clapshot and mince, clapshot and cold beef, clapshot with anything.
There must be more to Orkney food than beans, bunnos, beef and clapshot musn't there?
Well yes. We do have fish - fishing is a big Orkney industry. There's a traditional Orkney way to cook them too - and it still goes on. There is no need for fancy equipment when meat can be hung up from the roof in your little croft and smoked by the fire. This is how kippers were first made, as any small crofter would use this method. In fact, I still see some older Orkney residents using it - most of the days catch would be sold, but a few fish would be suspended from the rafters until next week, when you could enjoy a good meal.
We aren't of course, completely stuck in the past. In fact, most Orkney families won't eat bunnos or clapshot, only the older residents, and the traditional food will die with them, only to resurface at the occasional cultural event.
Orkney resists change very well, but it seems that ready meals and Safeway's Savers are welcomed here with open arms. It may be a shame, but at least it means I dont have eat any more clapshot.
P.S. This may shock you, but we don't have a McDonalds. Honest. Maybe eating all that clapshot put us right off eating the even more revolting Happy Meals.
