Orkney Food

Cooking here may not always be inspired, but with such excellent local raw materials, especially beef, fish and shellfish, we felt Orkney food was better than on a lot of Scottish islands. Look out for delicious pale local cheese – ask for ‘farmhouse cheese’. ‘Orkney cheese’, also good, comes in three flavors, but is factory-made and less special. Lots of unfamiliar kinds of bread rolls eg. ‘bere bannocks’, brown, rather heavy buns made from bere meal, grown only in Orkney. For an ethnic picnic, have bere bannocks and farmhouse cheese and round it off with delicious Orkney fudge in all sorts of different flavors. And don’t leave without sampling Scott’s smoked salmon and kippers.