The potatoes with everything

War than a toothsome dish. He can't fathom your etymol-

ogy but he does rate you -- along with Highland Park, Atlantic crabs

and Orkney fudge as among the best tastes to come out of Orkney. He also

reckons you go with everything.

Meat-eating Scots nowadays think of veg-

etables ''going with'' some form of meat but in the food culture of

the country a hundred years ago the vegetables were it. Clapshot was

your dinner.

Like the impoverished Irish peasant, the Scots, particularly in the

Highlands and Islands, lived chiefly on tatties and the ingenious

collection of meatless dishes which grew up around them. In Orkney,

clapshot was tatties and neeps; kailkenny was a north-east dish of

tatties, cabbage and cream; rumbledethumps was a Borders dish with the

same ingredients, but with butter. Stovies were universal, as were

chappit tatties and tattie soup.

With Irish immigration, some Irish potato dishes also became common in

Scotland. My Irish grandfather living in Glasgow liked champ: floury

boiled potatoes which had been mashed with a cup of milk in which some

finely chopped chives or spring onions had first been cooked. The whole

green spotted mound was dished out and a deep well made in the centre

which was filled with butter. It melted quickly with the heat into a

golden pool and forkfuls of the tasty mash were dunked in it.

Colcannon was another Irish potato dish which was made with cabbage

and served like champ. Scottish variations of colcannon can be found in

early twentieth-century cookery books. The Scots added turnip and

carrot, even onions, though they were not commonly grown among the

peasant classes in either Scotand or Ireland. In the food culture of

both countries meat was normally kept for weddings, funerals and other

celebrations. Potatoes, a little grain, dairy produce if they were

lucky, some fish, wild roots, herbs and berries were the staple foods.

It was a vegetarian way of eating which depended on the good quality of

the vegetables. Eaten with few other embellishments, the taste of the

tatties was everything.

Another hardy vegetable, one less susceptible to disease, was the

yellow turnip which came to Scotland via Sweden in the late eighteenth

century. White turnips had been grown in Scotland before but the yellow

variety, which seems to have been developed in Bohemia in the

seventeenth century, became popular because of its ability to withstand

the winter. It was this turnip, in the late eighteenth century, which

changed the agricultural system when it was found that animals could be

kept alive through the winter on turnips, thus preventing the mass

slaughter of livestock which had taken place in the autumn.

In Orkney, and also in Caithness, where originally onions, leeks and

garlic were unknown, the unique combination of neeps and tatties was

made. Some modern writers have included an onion in clapshot but it was

not present in the original. At least not in what is possibly the first

account of clapshot which appears in Reminiscences of an Orkney Parish,

by John Firth, a local joiner in the township of Redland.

Recalling the lifestyle he knew during his boyhood in the first half

of the nineteenth century, he related the story to his two daughters,

who assembled the book. It is an exceptionally vivid account of an

Orkney way of life which had totally changed for them by the time the

book was published in 1920 when their father was 82. It requires only a

short jump of the imagination to visualise the scene in the Orkney home:

a central hearth with a slow-burning peat fire for cooking and heating,

the chain hanging from one of the rafters and attached to it a black

three-legged pot.

''In those bygone days, especially in harvest, potatoes were served

for breakfast, dinner and supper, as there was often very little meal

until the crop was cut. For breakfast the potatoes were boiled with the

skins on. When cooked, they were 'sied' (strained), peeled and put back

in the pot hanging over the fire. After the peeling was completed, a

little oatmeal and salt was sprinkled over them, and they were mashed

and supped out of the pot, either sweet-milk or kirnmilk (buttermilk)

being served with them. For dinner the potatoes were boiled with their

jackets on, and when cooked, they were poured in a large basin --

usually the 'baking plate' -- or 'cooped' (emptied) in the middle of the

table. A bowl containing 'dippings' (melted fat or butter) was placed in

the centre of the heap. The family gathered round, each one peeled for

himself and dipped in the fat, neither spoon nor fork being used.

Instead of a second course, or as a pudding, thick kirnmilk and meal was

served, or as a special treat, 'louts' (that is sour clotted sweet milk)

and 'burstin' (toasted barley). For supper, kail or turnips boiled with

pared potatoes were mashed together, and, well savoured with salt and

pepper, eaten with bere (barley) bannocks. This vegetarian dish bore the

curious name of 'clapshot'.''

FIRTH'S clapshot with kail is an excellent alternative to turnip (chop

the kail very finely and cook in melted butter till just soft rather

than boiling it with the potatoes).

Searching through some Orkney cookery books revealed a variety of

other permutations:

Eileen Wolfe, in Recipes from the Orkney Islands, quotes a recipe from

Mrs Drever in Stromness, which entails boiling equal quantites of

potatoes, turnips and carrots, mashing them with butter and sprinkling

them with chopped chives.

In the Shapinsay SWRI book of recipes Mrs Shearer of Kirkton makes her

clapshot with just half-quantity turnip to potato and serves it with

cold meat, stews, mince and haggis.

In The Other Orkney Book by Gordon Thomson, clapshot is also made with

half quantity turnip to potatoes; this one is mashed with both milk and

butter.

George Mackay Brown does likewise, but also adds a chopped onion to

the boiling potatoes and turnip. The onion addition is an interesting

idea worth pursuing.

At a luncheon recently to award the Ubiquitous Chip restaurant in

Glasgow with the Macallan-Decanter Restaurant of the Year Award, they

served clapshot with the main-course beef. Instead of the onions boiled

with the potatoes and turnip they had been ''burnt'' (caramelised) and

served on top of the clapshot. It was the best partnership I've met so

far.

Clapshot With

Burnt Onion

INGREDIENTS (4 servings):

1lb (500g) floury potatoes, Golden Wonder, King Edward, Kerr's Pink

etc., peeled;

1lb (500g) turnip, peeled and diced;

1oz (25g) butter;

Salt and freshly-ground black pepper;

1 large Spanish onion;

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil;

1 tablespoon granulated sugar;

METHOD: Making the clapshot:

Put the turnip into a pot, just cover with water and simmer for about

ten minutes before adding the potatoes. Cut the potatoes in half and put

into the pot with the turnip. Because they are floury and also peeled it

is important not to overcook or they will disintegrate into potato soup.

They can be steamed in a steamer on top of the turnip. Overcooking the

turnip will make it waterlogged and tasteless. When both are just cooked

remove and drain, reserving the liquid for using in soups. Dry off a

little over a low heat before mashing with butter, taste and season. Put

into serving dish.

Making the burnt onions: While the potatoes and turnip are cooking,

heat up oil in a pan and add the onions. Cook slowly for about 15

minutes, driving off the moisture, until they are crisp and golden

brown. Sprinkle over the sugar and stir continuously for another five

minutes while the sugar caramelises and the onions darken.

Serve on top of the clapshot.

When in Orkney, eat with a young ''squeaky'' farmhouse cheese and

beremeal bannocks.

Alternatively: a Gowrie (full-fat hard-pressed cheese from

unpasteurised cow's milk) or Craigrossie (hard cheese from unpasteurised

ewe's milk), both from Ingle Smokehouse in Perth; or a Clava (full-fat

hard sheep's-milk cheese) from Nairnside Farm, outside Nairn; or an Isle

of Mull Cheddar from Sgirob-ruadh Farm Dairy in Tobermory; or a Stichill

cheese (hard Wensleydale-type crumbly cheese from unpasteurised Jersey

milk) from Garden Cottage Farm, Stitchill, Kelso. Or any other hard or

semi-hard hand-made Scottish cheese with a good flavour.

Irish soda bread would make a good substitute for Orkney beremeal

bannocks.