[Sca-cooks] Pennsic Camp Cooking

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Aug 11, 2008, at 10:45 PM, David Friedman wrote:

> I also made oatcakes another night. That's something I had been  
> planning to do at Pennsic for years. They are about the simplest  
> possible bread-like plausibly period thing, requiring only coarse  
> ground oats, salt, water, a fire and a frying pan. Not the world's  
> tastiest dish, but not bad.

They're much better if, after "baking" in the pan, they are toasted/ 
dried in front of the fire to a cracker-like consistency. Northern  
English housewives were hanging them on the clothes line in front of  
the fireplace up to the 1940's or so, if an old PPC article on  
oatcakes is to be believed. They can be sort of limp and soggy if you  
eat them right away, but if you make a lot of them in advance and let  
them dry, they have an interesting dog-biscuit matzoh flavor (which is  
a lot better than I'm making it sound). It's probably also consistent  
with a lot of old Scandinavian flatbread practice, which may or may  
not sway Moorish thinking ;-).

Adamantius




"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter