Staffordshire, my place of origin and residence, is a "minor county". That's according to a cricketing body of some kind. I imagine them all wearing straw boaters and sipping a lot of Pimm's in the summer. Pimm's is nasty, as anyone whose tastebuds have not been addled by the overconsumption of kedgeree and gin will tell you. It tastes like cough medicine, now matter how many lumps of cucumber are floated in it. On sampling it, Jilly Goulden would be justified in saying: “Hmmm, I'm getting an overtone of Benylin, a whisp of Buttercup syrup and a medicinal aftertang of Liquefruita”. People who willingly drink such stuff and enjoy it have dubbed Staffordshire "minor"; they are clearly not quaffing from a full tumbler.
But it is not really they who have prompted me to write about my home county. It was someone I met recently whose life has been spent between two of our more major cities. On learning that I not only came from Staffordshire but also lived in the county town, he screwed up his face thoughtfully and then put forward the notion that no-one living anywhere else in the country has the vaguest idea what Stafford is like; it has no distinctive regional or cultural identity. Nobody knows how we speak, what we eat, what our contributions to the world might be. Naturally, I was miffed, especially as he was born in a place that for me produced nothing more interesting than images of curly-haired moustachioed men in unflattering tracksuits shuffling about and ordering each other to "calm down" (though here I will parenthetically admit that John Lennon is maybe a boon) and he now lives in the city of "apples and pears" and Trotter's Independent Trading. I felt a need to defend my homeland, to remind the world of its importance and distinction. Now, I do suppose that other regions might also be afflicted with this alleged cultural blankness. For example, my mother once saw a news item that mentioned "Hemel Hempstead". She was surprised, because for all of her life up to that point she had believed that Hemel Hempstead was a joke place made up for a sitcom; after all, it does sound rather like Margot Leadbetter trying to say "Hammill Hampstead". I pondered this maternal folly and wondered if there were people down in the Home Counties who thought that Stafford had been created by a comedian. I began to muse on the notion of the culturally naked Staffordian and, after hours of research and many cups of (perhaps ironically) Yorkshire Tea, I came up with the following: oatcakes.
Oatcakes are Staffordshire's native delicacy, our scouse or eel pie, but are far superior to either of those dishes as they are available in varying weights: well, thick and thin. Essentially a crater-filled, glutinous and pleasantly flavourless porridge pancake, probably born from a sorry combination of empty bellies and empty wallets, the oatcake has nonetheless since become a costly restaurant novelty. I know this to be so because I had an "oatcake pizza" at a fashionable eatery in the North Staffordshire village of Alton (which is more famous for its Towers than its trendy and incongruous fusion cuisine). It was Napoli meets Burslem. The dish was not altogether a success, as one of the basic qualties of the oatcake is its porosity, so the Neopolitan topping rendered the Burslemian base soggy, turning it back into the primordial porridge from whence it came, only red. Thus, it was no longer even porridge pancake - though on reflection, if a restaurateur is trying to sell the oatcake as a fusion cuisine element, it might be better to call it porridge crepe, although that does sound a bit like Margot Leadbetter being rude about an oat based cereal.
So (arguably) Staffordshire has a cuisine distinct enough to have been fusioned. Though if that doesn't convince you that the place is brimming over with character, it also has a variety of industries (or had, in some cases) that have served the rest of the nation well: beer, leather and rather famously, up in the north of the county, clay. Most people have at least heard of The Potteries, and may even own a piece of Wedgwood, as it is often chosen as an unwanted and useless gift for notable anniversaries - I say useless, as it is very expensive, so most Wedgwood gifts are of the small trinket box dust gathering variety. Or else a tiny little plate, perhaps the size of a saucer, like something from the teaset of a tasteful and rather well off dolly.
Whilst I am discussing industry, it would be wrong not to mention coal. The Black Country is a well known regional nomenclature, a phrase rather beautifully evocative of a kind of brooding gothic hell. The strip of Staffordshire (and other counties, since the border shifts) that makes up The Black Country follows and is named for the South Staffordshre Coal Seam, which fuelled the industry that brought economic success to the area whilst scarring its landscape, so that the blackness became more than a simple reference to coal. The area became hellishly gothic for real and still is, even though urban regeneration is always afoot. There is the nostalgia for the old industrialism in places like The Black Country Museum as well as rancour and lingering hatred left by the Miners' Strike. Staffordians are a little ambivalent towards coal. In other areas where the industry once reigned, craft shops sell little objets d'art fashioned out of coal dust, but not so here. If you talk to former miners in Cannock or Rugeley, it becomes apparent that the social unrest, poverty, violence and betrayal are still remembered. Family members are estranged. I met one ex-miner who, in addition to not speaking to his brother in law who was a "scab", also plans to hold a large celebration on the day that a certain former Prime Minister goes to be judged by a power higher than the electorate. He is now working in confectionery sales.
