Throdkin, haggis and skirlie: savoury oatmeal recipes.

Throdkin, haggis and skirlie: savoury oatmeal recipes.

The following little ditty was composed by a distant relative of mine, Sir Antony Bordough, an absentee Highland Laird and well-known bon viveur et bon vivant of Edinburgh, London and the Riviera:

Parritch is guid yer guts for tae scrub,
but t'is throdkin, haggis and skirlie
wull mak you strang and mak you burly!
Sae eats them aften, eats them airlie,
gin ye seik hailsum, savoury grub.*

Down with the tyranny of macaroni and potatoes and rice! Something healthy and savoury for a change would be nice: So then, what's your favourite savoury oatmeal dish?-- something fibrous to accompany flesh or fish, that's my keenly desired wish!

God save the Quean!
Antonius

*Translation from the original Scots: Porridge is good in order to scrub your guts, but it's throdkin, haggis and skirlie which will make you strong and make you burly! So eat them often, eat them early, if you seek wholesome, savoury food.

Post-site-move character problems mended.

Try bannocks in place of potato pancakes:

Ingredients
4 oz (125g) medium oatmeal
2 teaspoons melted bacon fat2 pinches of bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
3/4 tablespoons hot water


Method
Mix the oatmeal, salt and bicarbonate and pour the melted fat into the centre of the mixture. Stir well, and add enough water to make into a stiff paste. Cover a surface in oatmeal and turn the mixture onto this. Divide into two and roll one half into a ball and knead with hands covered in oatmeal to stop it sticking. Roll out to around quarter inch thick. Put a plate which is slightly smaller than the size of your pan over the flattened mixture and cut round to leave a circular oatcake. Cut into quarters and place in a heated pan which has been lightly greased. Cook for about 3 minutes until the edges curl slightly, turn, and cook the other side. Get ready with another oatcake while the first is being cooked.

Some more poetry you might enjoy:

When auld men sing a weary tune
o'sweethearts lang syne deid

I gie ma whisky bottle oot
an smash it on their heid

Oh gie me peace, ya stupid gits
Yer weepins unco' rank

If ancient luv torments yer soul
jis go an huv a wank

Savoury Oatmeal Recipes

JohnM:

Thanks: a) for the nice bannock recipe; b) for the amusing and naughty little poem in Scots; c) not letting my admittedly odd post go wholly unanswered...

Despite my indulgence in doggerel, both Scots and English, the cooking question was actually seriously meant. I would like to find out some savoury preparations of oatmeal, in order to get more into the diet of someone who has relatively little interest in sweet dishes.

A

Nice poem, but are you sure THRODKINS are (or were) savoury?

Also, we differ on its origin. Scotland? The Fylde? I think we need to form a Throdkin Research Group to establish the truth of all this - and to find a recipe.

http://omf.blogspot.com/2005/04/throdkins-throdkins-throdkins.html

It looks as if it wasn't a GoogleWhack after all because the word appeared here long before I used it.

Tony wrote:Nice poem, but are you sure THRODKINS are (or were) savoury?

Also, we differ on its origin. Scotland? The Fylde? I think we need to form a Throdkin Research Group to establish the truth of all this - and to find a recipe.

http://omf.blogspot.com/2005/04/throdkins-throdkins-throdkins.html

It looks as if it wasn't a GoogleWhack after all because the word appeared here long before I used it.

___

Tony:

Willkommen beim LTH-Forum/Benvenuto al Foro-LTH!

Immediately I received word that a response to my little note anent savoury oatmeal dishes had been posted, I washed the sheep guts from my hands and rushed to my computer, thinking to myself, “is this the day wherefor I with breath well bated so long have waited? Am I now at last to learn of a savoury oatmeal dish, wherewith my ardent wish and pining paunch will now be sated?”

Well, alas and alack, no recipe did I find but I am pleased much to learn that there is a reasonable likelihood that ‘t were I who first put the word “throdkin” –– with, of course, much credit going in that regard to my cousin, Sir Antony Bordough –– on “the auld warld-wyde-wab.” I must mention here too that I was garred by your note to contact Sir Antony and take counsel with him before responding to your message. I was fortuitously able to reach the guid laird at a “truncher pairtie” at his country house near Aix-en-Provence and, when he finally calmed down and ceased his Anglophobic rant, he suggested I convey to you the following points:

Sir Antony Bordough wrote:1) Hoot awa! Gin ye wull comment on a post, ye mun reid the damnit thing weel! Naebody hes claimit that throdkin is Scots in any narra, internationally recognised sense o’ the word. Ilkane kens fu’ weel that the dish cams frae Lancashire! But let me juist say this, that the far north o’ Ingland is still in the een o’ mony a Scotsman juist the far south o’ greater Scotland, or as my Prussian cousin micht say, juist a pairt o’ Groß-Schottland!

2) Mebbe there be fowks that maks their throdkin wi “syrup”, as ye, Schir, claims, but there are ithers that nivver wald dae sic ae thing: havermeal wi water an seam (for ye unco’ fowk that’s the fat o’ ae grice, in Inglis “lard”) an ye haps the tap o’ it wi braw sleeshes o’ bacon, pits it i’ the ovven an cuiks it till it’s aa wallopin’ graidlie. Ae fine thing tae fill your bag wi’ on ae cauld day efter danderin’ amang the heather i’ the Pennines or alang the foggie banks o’ auld Ribble.

3) I’m muckle canty tae heir that ye liked my wee pome.

Noo we cam til the hinner enn o’ it: twice ye’re wrang an aince ye’re richt: 1) naebody said throdkin was frae Scotland (proper); 2) throdkin is ae savoury dish wi’ seam an bacon (an tak tent: ye can shairlie eet it wi’oot onie syrups; 3) ‘t was a braw ditty.

So then, Tony, please forgive Sir Antony his rather undiplomatic manner and understand that the above response is in my opinion to be taken as quite –– even unco’ –– friendly, if considered in the broader context of the guid laird’s correspondence.

Please keep us posted on further oatmeal-related news from the UK and again, welcome to LTHForum!



Antonius

_____
P.S. On a less jocular or silly note, I was unaware of the possible (usual?) addition of syrup and indeed have seen the dish described as a "savoury" one. The lard and bacon are, I believe, the essential elements added to the oatmeal. Thanks for writing in and reviving this neglected thread...

I had a wee browse around your blog and look forward to reading more.



A

Typos fixed.

Not sure what throdkin is, but it sounds a wee bit like goetta, a Cincinnati staple of German origin, that is essentially sausage and pinhead oats made into a loaf and sliced and fried like scrapple. It has been mentioned on here before, methinks. It is often served with syrup or honey, but can be eaten neat. Just had some this morning at breakfast, and even the kids like it without syrup. My personal favorite is Gliers goetta, which lists its ingredients as: pork & beef, pork & beef broth, steel cut oats, pork hearts, pork skins, onions, salt, spices, msg. It can be ordered at www.goetta.com, but you end up paying a lot more on shipping than on the actual product. I make my parents bring a cooler full when they come to visit the grandkids.
-Will

Throdkins, slightly off-topic
Having recently published an encomium on a great Scots poet (http://omf.blogspot.com/2005/04/doing-it-badly-1.html), and, last September, a perceptive analysis of the background to the Act of Union (http://omf.blogspot.com/2004/09/united-kingdom.html), I find it hurtful that I should have been the victim of an attack on this page by a person, possibly of foreign extraction, masquerading as a demented Teutophone Scot living in France who writes in a sort of cod Scottish dialect.
My position as CEO of a multinational corporation means that I have little time to involve myself in frivolous disputes of this kind, so I asked the Press Officer of our Scottish subsidiary to invite some eminent kilted aristocrat to reply to “Sir” Antony Bourdough on my behalf. He has sent me a response from The McSnoddy of McSnoddy, Laird of Inverlecky, which reads as follows:
Losh, mon, haud yer wheesht, ye’re nobbut a greekit tattie-bogle! Onyways, twa piggles dinna mek’ a throdkin, ye great lummock!
I think that concludes the matter.

There's been a bit 'o Lallans in the air this week, with folks thinking about Robbie Burns and reciting his poems and all, and so I came to think of my cousin, Sir Antony Bordough (who is cited twice above), and thus also of this thread. Of course, it's always a little hard for me to go all out on Burns Night, seeing as each year I find myself still recovering from the celebration of E.T.A. Hoffmann Day... (and a fine one it was this year!)...
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=21194#21194

In the meanwhile I've been gathering savoury oatmeal recipes on my own and will publish them when the right time and place present themselves.

Thanks again to john m; Tony frae Ingland, I'm glad you finally learned to steik your mou'. Tschüß.

Antonius

I hae clean forgot that ye had mentioned this last year, Sir Anthony; nae doubt still sufferin' the effects of overindulgence in the Master's seven-percent solution on his day.