No potatoes and no bread in Galloway

It wasn't so long ago that people living in Galloway had to do without two staples of life – potatoes and bread.

The History of Galloway from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Volume II, page 404, published in 1816 in Kirkudbright by John Nicholson, gives some interesting information on food.

“In 1725, potatoes were first introduced to Galloway, or at least into the Stewartry of Kirkudbright, by William Hyland, from Ireland. This new species of food being accounted a luxury, few potatoes were used in the district for some time; for Hyland regularly carried his whole crop to Edinburgh, where he sold them in pounds and even ounces.

“At this period, there was perhaps not one baker in Galloway. Only one resided in the town of Dumfries and he baked half-penny baps, or rolls, of coarse flour, which he carried in baskets to the fairs of Urr, Kirkpatrick, &c., where they met with a ready sale. No wheat at this time grew in the district, and it was believed that the ground would not produce it. Even so late as the year 1735, no mill existed in the south of Scotland for grinding this sort of grain. The first flour mill was built at Cluden, in the parish of Holywood, some years after this date.”

No doubt everyone existed on good Scottish porridge which is made from oats. Dr Johnston defined oats in his great dictionary as “a grain which in England is fed to horses but which in Scotland sustains the population.”

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