For centuries the Scots made a beneficial bacteria-rich porridge (called Sowans) and drink (called Swats) from oat grain ‘waste’. In this article, I’m going to explain what sowans and swats are and how you can bring them to life in your own kitchen!… Read More
I regularly make the fermented drink, boza, in my kitchen. It’s fun, tangy, fizzy and really satisfying as well as being probiotic. I love it and want everyone to be enjoying it, but I’ve noticed that most people have never … Read More
Oats have an almost mythological connection with the Scottish. Maybe, as you stand in the kitchen making your breakfast oatmeal – pouring in rolled oats, adding water/milk and stirring – you imagine that you are doing just what your Scottish … Read More
I’ve spent the last week writing up how I make medieval ale in my kitchen. Looking back over what I wrote, I’m astounded: it’s an incredible amount of work! Yet this is a fraction of what women did in the … Read More
This post outlines how I make unhopped ale of the kind my female English ancestors did in their own kitchens until just a few hundred years ago. Because, yes, ale was women’s work. For most of history, the realm of … Read More
“Jannock is scarcely ever seen in south east Lancashire now; but it used to be highly esteemed. The common expression “That’s noan jannock” applied to anything which is not what it ought to be, and commemorates the fame of this … Read More
Many of the cereals we see on breakfast tables these days are ridiculously-processed. Ridiculously-processed is my term…‘extruded’ is the scientific term. Yes, some of the contents of the cereal packet may have started life as a grain but let me … Read More
The Weston A. Price Foundation published my article So Much More Than Scottish Porridge: The Rich Culinary History of British Oats in the Winter 2023 edition of their journal Wise Traditions. It is an exploratory dive into the wonderful legacy of … Read More
This post describes the health benefits of the ancestral technique of fermenting grains. It then explains that very few Scottish (and Welsh) traditional oat recipes included fermentation and yet the oat-eating communities enjoyed incredible health. It asks why this could … Read More
If I say the word beer, what do you think of? For me, it’s that men drink it, and it tastes bitter. Because of these two things, for most of my life I’ve thought beer wasn’t for me. Beer’s a … Read More