Bannock noun a round, flat cake
‘An hour later, filled to bursting with hot tea, parritch, bannocks with honey, and black pudding, he found himself on an autumn-shaggy horse, following Brian Fraser through the rising mist of early morning.’ (Written in my own Heart’s Blood)
Bannock appears in Old English as bannuc and traces its origins back to the Latin panis or panicium meaning bread. They have been staples of both diet and language. They are usually made of oatmeal, barley, pease or flour, although the Pitcaithly bannock is a bit more swanky, being a kind of shortbread with chopped almonds and citron peel.
Another variation is the ‘fitless cock’ from Roxburgh which John Jamieson describes in the 1825 edition of his Dictionary as: ‘a cake baked of lard and oat-meal, and boiled among broth; also denominated a sodden banno’, usually made about Fastern’s Een, or Shrovetide’. Indeed, Shrove Tuesday was known as Bannock Nicht, a cheery occasion which G P Dunbar describes in A Guff o’ Peat Reek (1929): ‘On Bannock Nicht we gethert roon some cheery ingle neuk, An’ ower the aipples in a tub got mony a her’ty dook’.
A veritable feast is described in the Transactions of the Banffshire Field Club (1890): ‘Mutton, ham, cheese, broiled salmon, bannocks, and butter were produced promiscuously’.
Bannock is occasionally used to describe anything of a similar shape, and a curious example comes from the Statistical Account of Scotland (1839), which records that, in Wigton, the writer ‘saw a ball of fat, or bannock of tallow, weighing 27 lbs., that was found in the moss’.
Figuratively, a braider bannock means a more prosperous living. The Perthshire Advertiser (18 February 1839) reports: ‘The Lord has seen fit to call him to another quarter of his vineyard. It is a great blessing to state, however, that his call is to a “braider Bannock”’.
Another less sought for figurative use is to imply that someone is past the first flush of youth. Sir James Wilson, in The Dialects of Central Scotland (1926), gives the example: ‘Shee’s noa a bawnick oa yesturday’z baikin’.