The kail (cabbage) was the staple vegetable in the Scottish kailyard prior to the agricultural revolution.

In the early 1700s, Scottish food was certainly monotonous enough. The labourer's wages included 2 pecks of oatmeal that he received weekly plus an adequate source of milk. Oatmeal, the staple diet, could be mixed with milk to make porridge and this was served at breakfast and supper alike. Oatmeal could also be mixed with water to make gruel, or made into a paste and baked into oatbread or bannocks. Lunch was out of the kail-pot (i.e., from the kailyard or garden kept by his wife) and might consist of barley broth with kail plus bannocks of barley or pease-meal.

Brose, a common dish, was made by cooking oatmeal or peasemeal in boiling water or milk and adding salt and butter. The mixture might be only roughly stirred so as to leave lumps. The skimmed fat of soup might also be added. Almost everyone in the rural population would have milk from ewes, goats or cows that they'd make into butter and cheese for consumption in the late winter when meal reserves had run low and before spring grass provided for the resumption of fresh milk. Poultry provided eggs and their flesh was usually turned into soup. The farmer's (husbandman) diet would be similar but would also include meat twice a week - mutton in the summer; salt beef in the winter. For the cottar, meat would be a luxury he might scarcely taste except on festive occasions.

Following are pictures of a number of domestic tools.

The cruisie (above left) provided light from available fuels such as fish oil or animal fats. The wick sat in the spout of the vessel and was usually made from peeled and twisted rushes. Earlier stone or wooden receptacles were replaced by iron vessels with a range of shapes and designs. The two rounded vessels were often fashioned by the local blacksmith by being beaten from sheet metal over shaped formers. The cruisie was primed with oil and a wick then lit and hung from its wall mount. As the level of oil dropped, the inner vessel was tipped forward to ensure that the wick remaining in the oil gave the maximum illumination. The outer vessel was essential to ensure that none of the precious oils were lost as the cruisie was adjusted.

As the name suggests, the porringer (above right) was used for storing porridge. The porridge would be prepared in a large cooking pot and then stored for use over several days. It was usually reheated for meals but was also eaten cold by workers in the fields. The porringer was always kept moist because if it dried out, the wooden staves would dry out and loosen the bindings. Several staves and a circular base were shaped into a tapered cylinder from timber such as pine. A longer stave formed the handle which could have a hole at the top for hanging from the wall. Metal rings bindings or withies made from supple wooden twigs were driven over the dry staves. When the wood was moistened it expanded and bound the porringer into a solid, watertight container.

Cooking in the 19th century was almost always done over an open hearth with peat, or sometimes animal dung as fuel. The girdle was used for baking oatcakes or scones and hung directly over the open fire. The girdle shown above left is made from shaped iron bars, but flat plates were also common. It was suspended above the fire by a sway bracket attached to the wall. Two cruicks, or hooks, and a series of links were adjusted to change the height and position of the girdle above the heat of the fire.

In the farm kitchen, a cooking pot was usually to be found hanging over the open fire from its handles. A family would have no more than one or two pots so the cooking of food had to be adapted to the available vessels. With two pots, a menu of porridge and broth was likely. The pots came in many sizes and the larger ones would also be used for washing clothes and blankets. Cast iron cooking pots came into widespread use as the Scottish iron industry developed in the 18th century. This one has two large side handles, though hooped handles were also used. Three or four legs were added to support the pot when standing on the floor.

Given the agricultural methods used at the time, along with the crude tools that were available, you'll appreciate that food production was limited. Just getting anything to grow in barely fertile, weed-infested soil was an accomplishment. In the best of times, the crops were meagre. Crop failures because of inclement weather were common. Keep in mind that Europe & Great Britain were enduring a mini-ice age at the time. For example, between 1695 and 1699 there were four successive years of serious scarcity. Bad harvests in the Highlands from 1693 spread to the Lowlands, creating crippling food shortages and untold human misery that was not relieved until the better harvest of 1700. Food prices soared and the parish system of localized relief proved wholly inadequate. Nationally, the population fell by 13% due to deaths from starvation and disease related to malnutrition, a fall in the birth-rate caused by inadequate diet, and as a consequence of unusually high levels of emigration.

There were other consequences of famine as well. People moved around more than ever before, most commonly in search of work or alms. Vagrancy represented a form of subsistence migration which created fear among the property owners and led to strict measures to regulate movement. Kirk sessions were required to issue certificates to those with legitimate reasons for being on the move, and magistrates could resort to quite savage punishments like scourging and branding for those who persistently flouted the law.

In a society which relied so heavily on a single grain, a failure of the oat crop even on a local scale could lead to a situation in which the peasants dropped from their normal plateau of rough plenty into a deep trough of deprivation, even of famine. Here's a description of the famine at the end of the 17th century.

These manifold unheard-of judgments continued seven years, not always alike, but the seasons, summer and winter, so cold and barren, and the wonted heat of the sun so much withholden, that it was discernible upon the cattle, flying fowls and insects decaying, that seldom a fly was to be seen; our harvests not in the ordinary months; many shearing in November and December; yea, some in January and February; many contracting their deaths, and losing the use of their feet and hands shearing and working in frost and snow; and, after all, some of it standing still and rotting upon the ground, and much of it for little use either to man or beast, and which had no taste or colour of meal.

Meal became so scarce that it was sold at two shillings a peck; and many could not get it. Deaths and burials were so many and common that the living were wearied with the burying of the dead. I have seen corpses drawn on sleds. Many got neither coffin nor winding-sheet. Many did eat, but were neither satisfied nor nourished; and some of them said to me that they could mind nothing but meat, and were nothing better by it, and that they were utterly unconcerned about their souls, whether they went to heaven or hell.

During this period, there were some normal seasons, and crop failures were not always widespread. However, with no means of communication and with no transportation, people in some districts could be relatively well off while those in other districts were dying of absolute starvation. The peasants in time of scarcity attempted first to fall back on other foods, for example various weeds. Finally, in the last extremity, the peasant began to eat the seed corn which was intended to provide their food for the following year. This, of course, led to a second year of famine which is why there tended to be multiple years of famine at a time. When everything the peasant had was devoured, he had no choice but to leave his holdings and go begging with his family. The army of vagabonds which always existed in Scottish society was enormously swollen in times of bad harvest, and emigration to Ireland and Scandinavia always ran highest in these years.

By the mid 1700s, conditions were much better. Crop failures were still common: 1756, 1762, 1771, 1782, 1795, 1799, 1800, 1812, 1816 for instance were all bad years. However, not all of them were catastrophic because farming methods had improved. The enthusiasm of the upper classes for gardening began to be copied on a small scale in the kailyards of the peasantry. This led to a growing choice of green vegetables, turnips, carrots, herbs, and fresh fruit. A few of these crops - especially turnips and carrots - were utilized for feedstock, and as more meat was raised for external sale, more found its way into the stomachs of the peasants.

However, the arrival of the potato as a common field crop was equally as important, if not more so. Benefits were threefold; 1) It helped to balance the national diet and to eliminate chronic and debilitating scurvy in communities where kail, the only traditional vegetable of the common people, was normally obtainable. 2) It provided an alternative staple to the ubiquitous oatmeal which a peasant could grow on his own plot of land. 3) The potato could be used as a lifeline when there was a bad failure of the oat crop. By 1770, the potato was a common crop on the holding of the poor throughout most of Scotland.

Here's what one parish minister said about the potato in the 1790 Statistical Accounts.

This root has proved more beneficial to the country than perhaps any other production of the land. It has saved the tenants from the ruinous necessity of purchasing meal for their families for a prodigious amount. It is not above 22 years since potatoes were introduced into the field and cultivated by means of the plough. This vegetable may be reckoned a full third of the food of the common people, yet they are as healthy and vigorous at least as before; and instead of involving themselves in inextricable debt and difficulties, by purchasing meal as formerly, they can afford to sell part of their barley to the distillers.

The adoption of better farming techniques and the introduction of the potato had a significant effect on the peasantry and on Scotland in general. These improvements reduced the number of children dying from famine - the main victims of scarcity. The mortality rates for children over the age of one was 25%-33% higher after a bad harvest. In addition, with more variety of food from his kailyard, the peasant was able to support a larger family. When the improvements in the national diet were combined with the measures to combat smallpox, the result was a population explosion. As noted in another part of this website, the number of Wighton births in the 25 years between 1751-1776 was 175% higher than the number of births in the previous 25 years.

While famines may have been less disastrous, and while there may have been some additional vegetables, the Scottish diet was undeniably monotonous - being based predominantly upon cereals and dairy foods. Here's an excerpt from the Statistical Accounts that describes the typical lowlander diet in the 1790s.

The diet of the labouring people here, and in general, all through the Lowlands of Scotland, is porridge, made of oatmeal, with milk or beer, for breakfast; sowens with milk or beer for dinner; and kail boiled with oatmeal for supper. With all of these, they used bread of oatmeal, or household meal. On Sundays, they have generally barley broth, with some meat in summer and butter in winter. Turnips are sometimes used in place of cabbage or greens; and potatoes, dressed in different ways, with butter, milk, onions, etc. are commonly a third of their food from the beginning of September to the end of March.

(Sowens is extracted from the bran or husks of oats by steeping in water, allowed to ferment slightly, and prepared by boiling. Kail represents greens in some form, or cabbage. Household meal would typically be a mixture of barley, rye, and pease.)

Here's another excerpt from the Statistical Accounts:

It would be hard to deny the sheer monotony of Scotland's diet - at least that of the bulk of the working people - with its heavy reliance on oatmeal, barley and potatoes, along with dairy foods and fish, and its extremely limited selection of vegetables and its virtual absence of fruit. What is equally undeniable, however, is the highly favourable assessment of the general health of the people part of which, at least, was due to the frugal but nourishing diet.

Sources

Houston, R. A. and Knox, W. W. J. (2001). The New Penguin History of Scotland, London: Penguin Books.

Smout, T.C. (1998). A History of the Scottish People, London: Fontana Press.

Rural Life in the 18th Century (www.electricscotland.com/history/rural_life7.htm)

Steven, Maisie (1995). Parish Life in 18th Century Scotland: A review of the old Statistical Accounts Glasgow: Scottish Cultural Press

ScottishMist.com Cooking implement images from http://www.scottishmist.com /index.php?option=content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=51