Andrew headed to Stoke-on-Trent, birthplace of Robbie Williams, Slash and the Staffordshire oatcake
It's a bright Saturday morning and I'm in Burslem, one of the six towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent, with Bill Pearson who's my local guide for the day. I'm here to try a Staffordshire oatcake, jokingly referred to as a 'Potteries poppadom' by the locals.
First up, a basic description. It's a pancake made with oat flour that's about nine inches wide. They're cooked quickly for a minute and a half on each side before being cooled. You can eat them like this, or have them heated again on a hotplate, called a baxton, so they go a bit crispier, with a filling such as egg, bacon or cheese.
The first place Bill takes me is Burslem Oatcakes on Waterloo road where I have a double with cheese and bacon. It's delicious, slightly crunchy and biscuity with a fair amount of salt and fat coming from the melting cheese. Darren Hughes is the current owner and tells me the shop's been here for more than 30 years. He and his staff tell me about what it used to be like when the 'pots, pits and steel' were the main industries in the town. "The queue would go out the door," says Darren. "We used to sleep in the shop on a Friday night to be ready for Saturday," says another employee. There's still a fair trade today mind, with postal workers and truck drivers stopping in for a hot, cheap snack. And cheap it is. 67p buys you a cheese filled oatcake.
We get back in the Focus and drive on to Foley Oatcakes on King Street owned by Martin Smith and staffed by Laura, Beth and Emma. Here again there's a brisk breakfast trade of young lads and Dads getting egg, bacon and cheese oatcakes. Here they have an 18 year old Heath Robinson-inspired machine that moves along the baxton dropping the mix. Then they're flipped by hand. "How many have you cooked today?" I ask. "220 dozen, and today's a quiet day. Thursdays we do double that as we have a stall on the market too," says Martin. That's nearly 5000 oatcakes on one day. And this is just one of 40 oatcake shops in the area, so you see how much they love their oatcakes round here. I opt for just cheese this time and it comes rolled rather than flat and quartered. Foley's oatcake is more moist and airy than Burslem's, I notice.
Finally Bill takes me to Oatcakes and Pikelets in Hanley run by another Smith family. Pikelets are sweeter, thicker versions of oatcakes, often containing dried fruit says Bill. "They're like your pudding," chips in another customer who's getting half a dozen breakfast versions for his family. I try one. It tastes like a scotch pancake crossed with a drop scone; rather sweet, but not bad at all.
I asked everyone for a recipe but no one would give me one. 'It's got oats in it', was as far as I got. It's clear the people of the Potteries love their oatcakes, but unlike that other regional working class industrial staple, the pasty, the oatcake has yet to take the world by storm. If these were sold as crepes filled with gruyere cheese out of a rustic Citron van at posh food markets they'd be £3 a pop. But they're not yet, and perhaps they're best made by and eaten by the people who love them.
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