Ode to the Oatcake

Let us pay homage to the Oatcake

Or Otcake or woodcake as the old men called them

The Oatcake is not a cake at all really

Not like the fairy cake or the Eccles cake

Not a cake in that way

More of a Potteries Popadum [sic]

A sort of Tunstall Tortilla

A Clay Suzzette.

As flat and thin as a dishcloth

An obedient and suppliant cheek

That will bend any way you want it

Round and floppy, the Oatcake

Has the texture similar to the

Skins of old colliers or men

Dying of Potters' rot.

These are not cakes made for every day

And should only be eaten twice

Or at the most three times a week

Preferably at weekends when you are flush

And filled with drink

Or the prospect of drink

Such richness every day would be too much

Rather like having the News of the World

Delivered as a morning paper

There would surely be a drop in production

And an explosion in the birth rate.

NO! Oatcakes are best eaten at weekends

And all genuine Oatcake shops are shut in the week

And their proprietors lie late abed

And spend the rest of the day

Watching horse racing on the telly.

I have heard it said that small fortunes

Are made in this trade

And among the Potteries working class

When a child is born

There can be no higher hope for it

Than that it could become a

Proprietor of a damned good

Oatcake and Pikelet shop.

The Pikelet you ask – what is that?

It’s a sort of female Oatcake

Smaller, thicker, sweeter

More immediately seductive

Sometimes with currants in it

A muffin for the Lumpen working class

Best eaten soaked in butter or marge.

If over indulged in

Both these cakes can play the very

Devil with your waistline

I must WARN!

INDULGENCE

Leads to BULGENCE