Very soft, slightly soda or yeast-raised, thin oatmeal pancakes eaten very fresh. Many small oatcake shops exist in North Staffordshire and serve them filled with any mixture of bacon, cheese, sausage, eggs, etc.


Large-scale production of Staffordshire Oatcakes, 2015
Image: http://www.poveysoatcakes.com



Filled Staffordshire Oatcakes at 'Oatcake Annies', Stoke-on-Trent, 2012


James Boswell wrote in his 1776 biography of Dr Johnson, after visiting Staffordshire; "I saw here, for the first time, oat ale; and oat cakes not hard as in Scotland, but soft like a Yorkshire cake, were served at breakfast. It was pleasant to me to find, that Oats, the food of horses, were so much used as the food of the people in Dr. Johnson's own town. He expatiated in praise of Lichfield and its inhabitants, who, he said, were 'the most sober, decent people in England, the genteelest in proportion to their wealth, and spoke the purest English.' I doubted as to the last article of this eulogy."



Leek Oatcake Shop, 2009
Image: Google