England: Yorkshire Oatcakes

(recipe adapted from from Grigson's ENGLISH FOOD)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb finely ground oatmeal

• 1/2 oz fresh yeast
• 1 scant teaspoon salt
• Water to mix: at blood heat

Put the oatmeal and salt in a bowl. Cream the yeast with a teacupful of water, and leave it to rise to a creamy froth.

Mix into the oatmeal and add more water until the batter is like a thick cream.

A ladleful is thrown onto the heated griddle or bakestone, in a narrow strip. It immediately puffs up with steam, which makes it smooth underneath and rough on top. "When baked it is damp and flexible, and is hung on the wooden clothes rail before the fire" (if you have one!) "to dry, or on lines across the kitchen ceiling. It must be crisped quickly immediately before it is to be eaten."

The flavour is slightly bitter and very appetizing. "It can be used for soups, fish, fowl, cheese, butter, or any kind of meat in place of any other kind of bread or biscuit."

(Lacking lines in the kitchen, you might try hanging the cakes over a broomstick handle in front of a radiator or open fire, or just toasting them under the broiler. When we had an Aga, in the kitchen of the last house we rented, we used the "towel-drying rail" in front of the ovens for this kind of thing, as well as for drying pasta: it worked very well.)