h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Orkney Food - A2379503
Author: Frenchbean <star>: Hello hip bones. - U236943

Here for peering at please

I hardly need tell you how much I enjoyed writing this one

Are the links too commercial? I really want to illustrate what I've written about, to tempt your tastebuds, but it's hard to do without linking to commercial enterprises. Advice please.

And on anything else...


Frenchbean

Hi Frenchbean, I can't see there being a problem with these commerical links, considering they are linking to small companies.And the Orkney Brewery makes fantasic produce. I spend a happy hour sampleing their wears at the Birmingham Beer Festival .

I want to go to Orkney

No your links look fine. See policy here - F77636?thread=220096

Oh good. That's fine then

What about the rest of it?


F/b

Looks really good. The only thing I would comment on is a style thing, in that you seem to have mentioned the buttercups in the kine fields more than once. Are they especially indicative of good milk?

Indicative of unimproved (ie more 'natural') grassland - I mean few chemicals

Fb

(surprised)

My grandfather's farm was near marsh and sand, so there were flags and spurge but no buttercups. The city I grew up in had grazelands surrounding it, but it wouldn't have occurred to anyone to treat the land with anything, so it didn't occur to me!


People like organic stuff, perhaps it's worth a mention?

Good point Sea Change: I'll add something to that effect. Most pasture is improved in the UK these days - especially lowland areas where they want to cram as many grazing beasts onto the grass as possible.

Whether it's actually 'improved' or not is rather a matter of opinion of course


f/b

Really nice entry, Fb.

Might make me want to visit. How do you pronounce 'bygg'? I'm assuming big, although it could be 'byeg'.

I know that a good number of horse farms in Kentucky and Tennesee were all but wiped out when it was discovered that the 'improved' grassland was nutritionally deficient and their 2-year-olds were suddenly dying from bizarre Avada Kedavra type illnesses.

Does it happen to kine, too?

Yup, it's 'big' ZSF

I don't know if the coos die that way SC But I do know that the soils in large parts of lowland Scotland (75% some say) are now so depleted of humus and trace elements that they'll cease to be able to support arable crops for much longer. Goodness knows what'll happen if they turn those fields over to pasture and cattle

We live in a mad world where money today is more important than life tomorrow

F/b

I just reread your article to check what you have added, and it occurred to me that you mentioned fudge in the intro in your article, but don't write anything else about it. I have always supposed it was an American invention connected to our earliest university sororities.

I also caught a spelling error:

archipeligo->archipelago

Aha! Thank you for the fudge spot You're right: I meant to do a wee paragraph on it. It's made in Stromness at the Fudge Factory, surprisingly enough

Thanks for the typo too

to amend...


F/b

Maybe I don't know what fudge is. How can it be plain-what's in plain fudge that separates it from icing?

Fudge is made of butter and gran. or demarara sugar. Nothing else. Cooked together to great temperature, then poured onto a flat tray, cooled and cut into squares.

That's plain: just butter and sugar. Add other stuff to make it different flavours.

It's brown in colour by the way. Icing's white isn't it? And made from icing sugar and water?


F/b

Buttercream icing is plain fudge plus raw egg whites.

I have never seen plain fudge, ever.

Interesting entry Fb, and one which made me

Firstly - fudge is not just sugar and butter. There are many ways of making it, but commercially it's made with sugar, glucose syrup, fat, butter, conny-onny (and if you're from near Liverpool you ought to know what that is ), fondant, and flavouring. 'Plain' fudge is flavoured with vanilla.

Secondly *puts on Scouts* hat...

The entry kind of hits the ground running. I think it would read better if there was some kind of brief overview of Orkney food before mentioning things like fudge and whisky. I guess you could simply reverse the order of the first para and pad the first half out with a little more description before mentioning any specifics.

reknowned - renowned

"...some of which is simply not available elsewhere in Britain"
Since we were already told in the previous paragraph that "some of which you can only buy on the islands", I guess it's inferred that you can only buy it on the islands.

"Whilst this is not an exhaustive list of Orkney produce, it provides a flavour of what you can expect while you are there"
That sentence doesn't really belong at the end of that particular paragraph. It could sit quite happily as a one-sentence paragraph immediately before the 'Dairy products' header.

"many kinds of seafish and crabs and lobsters"
There's some puctuation missing there I think...
'many kinds of seafish, as well as crabs and lobsters' perhaps?

"Orkney has lush pasture land, good herds of grass-fed dairy cows and subsequently its own dairy products"
There's something not quite right about that sentence, but I can't put my finger on it Maybe I'll come back to later.

I believe 'icecream' should be two words.

"Orkney farmhouse cheese is not the stuff that you sometimes see in supermarkets, tightly wrapped in plastic and tasting like cheddar"
That sentence isn't exactly clear. Do you mean 'Orkney farmhouse cheese isn't like the Orkney cheese you sometimes etc', or 'Orkney farmhouse cheese isn't like cheddar'?

"It can be crumbly as well as sometimes wetter and smoother"
How about 'It can sometimes be crumbly like , sometimes moist and smooth like '

"There are various varieties"
Varieties are, by definition, various aren't they? How about 'There are several varieties'?

"Bere Hordeum sativum is a barley-like grain"
I think that 'Hordeum sativum' needs to be seperated from the main text, either in parentheses, or between dashes: 'Bere - Hordeum sativum - is a barley-like grain'.

"rice biscuits made with rice flour"
I think you would only need to mention what they're made from if it was something other than rice.

*Love* Abernethy biscuits

"most land is grazed by cattle and beef is the most common meat"
You need a comma after 'cattle'.

"the beef is of high quality"
'Is of 'a' high quality'?

"sea fish features high on local tables"
That doesn't sound quite right either. 'Features high on local menus'? 'Is frequently eaten'? 'Is commonly eaten'? 'Is a local favourite'?

"it is possible to go out with some of the locals and bring home a crustacean for your dinner"
That has, er... connotations.

"in one corner or another:"
The word following a colon should be capitalised, so either 'far' should be written 'Far', or you need a semicolon.

Right, how about sharing a bottle of that Orkney single malt with me ... before hitting me over the head with it for being so critical of your entry


Scout
Back in the saddle again

Gnomon! There was me thinking that this one wasn't generating much critical interest from the picky pedants that I know inhabit PR

Thank you for all of that. You know I really don't mind these sort of comments, because (presumably) it'll be a better entry for it

The fudge thing: F/b's homemade fudge is just butter and sugar.

Rice biscuits: I disagree with you. You can buy biscuits in the supermarket with whole grains of rice in them but the Orkney ones are smooth because they're made from rice flour.

Taking a crustacean home: I think the connotations are simply a reflection of the way your brain works Gnomon! Not something that ever crossed my mind

I'll have to address edits later...


F/b

¡Viva Gosho!

Good to see you back in action.