In Most Houses There Is Wheat Flower, With Which We
Were Sure To Be Treated, If We Staid Long Enough To Have It Kneaded
And Baked.
As neither yeast nor leaven are used among them, their
bread of every kind is unfermented.
They make only cakes, and
never mould a loaf.
A man of the Hebrides, for of the women's diet I can give no
account, as soon as he appears in the morning, swallows a glass of
whisky; yet they are not a drunken race, at least I never was
present at much intemperance; but no man is so abstemious as to
refuse the morning dram, which they call a skalk.
The word whisky signifies water, and is applied by way of eminence
to strong water, or distilled liquor. The spirit drunk in the
North is drawn from barley. I never tasted it, except once for
experiment at the inn in Inverary, when I thought it preferable to
any English malt brandy. It was strong, but not pungent, and was
free from the empyreumatick taste or smell. What was the process I
had no opportunity of inquiring, nor do I wish to improve the art
of making poison pleasant.
Not long after the dram, may be expected the breakfast, a meal in
which the Scots, whether of the lowlands or mountains, must be
confessed to excel us. The tea and coffee are accompanied not only
with butter, but with honey, conserves, and marmalades. If an
epicure could remove by a wish, in quest of sensual gratifications,
wherever he had supped he would breakfast in Scotland.
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