The Land o' Cakes

Land Of Cakes

In Celtic countries the name used for the staple item of food was not, as in other parts of Britain, Loaf. This was because they did not actually produce such an oven-baked, leavened article but instead made a flat, un-leavened variety baked on a girdle. This was originally known as a 'Kaak of bread' in the days when bread meant a slice rather than the whole loaf. We still refer to a Loaf of Bread but the Kaak has taken on quite different meanings. In Oatcakes and also in the Scottish pancake, however, it retains its original concept. When Scotland is referred to as the Land o' Cakes in literature it does not mean the land of the fancy, sweetened varieties we are familiar with today, but the simple, unleavened, unsweetened cake of bread or oatcake, since oats were the staple grain crop.

Bannocks were a home-made, unleavened form of bread which were always made thicker than an oatcake and in a large round or oval shape rather than cut into quarters. Barley was the commonest grain used for bannocks, though peasemeal, oatmeal, wheaten flour and the powdered silverweed root were also used.

A Farle or Farl was a quarter of an oatcake.

from:

http://www.visitdunkeld.com/land-of-cakes-scotland.html