The Isle of Sky has stags and roebucks, but no hares.
They sell very numerous droves of oxen yearly to England, and
therefore cannot be supposed to want beef at home. Sheep and goats
are in great numbers, and they have the common domestick fowls.
But as here is nothing to be bought, every family must kill its own
meat, and roast part of it somewhat sooner than Apicius would
prescribe. Every kind of flesh is undoubtedly excelled by the
variety and emulation of English markets; but that which is not
best may be yet very far from bad, and he that shall complain of
his fare in the Hebrides, has improved his delicacy more than his
manhood.
Their fowls are not like those plumped for sale by the poulterers
of London, but they are as good as other places commonly afford,
except that the geese, by feeding in the sea, have universally a
fishy rankness.
These geese seem to be of a middle race, between the wild and
domestick kinds. They are so tame as to own a home, and so wild as
sometimes to fly quite away.
Their native bread is made of oats, or barley. Of oatmeal they
spread very thin cakes, coarse and hard, to which unaccustomed
palates are not easily reconciled. The barley cakes are thicker
and softer; I began to eat them without unwillingness; the
blackness of their colour raises some dislike, but the taste is not
disagreeable.
