Oatbread in North Staffordshire

Abstract

AbstractOatbread-making and eating is a flourishing tradition in the Pottery towns of North Staffordshire. Isolated and self-reliant, the Six Towns have developed and retained their own urban individuality, in some cases built upon inherited rural traditions. Oatbread—called oatcake and made from thin runny batter—is one such case.Immediately to the north and west of the Six Towns lie the Staffordshire and Derbyshire fringes of the Pennine moorlands, whose climate and configuration imposed a dependence upon oatbread, and to a lesser extent barley bread, as a staple similar to that of the rest of the Pennine world. This dependence was touched upon somewhat cursorily by most of the writers of general, social and agricultural accounts of the area in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.