We couldn't grow our own bird this year - they are still a bit young and small .
But we did manage some local produce over Christmas. Clapshot is a local delicacy that we have been introduced to.
I suspect root vegetables can do well here. The climate is mild, and long hours of daylight in the summer and as an added bonus they wont get blown away.
Neeps (Turnips) and Tatties ( Potatoes). Ours are grown locally and supplied from the organic producers down the hill. Boiled and mashed together with added chives or nutmeg. There is a typical recipe here.
And with it, North Ronaldsay mutton. North Ron sheep are the same group as our Borerays - North European short-tailed sheep.
The sheep are restricted to the foreshore for most of the year - a 13 mile drystone wall round the island was built in the late 18th Century to keep the sheep off cultivated land. And they have evolved to cope with this.
They graze predominantly on seaweed. Whilst sheep normally digest in the rumen ( stomach) at night, North Ron sheep do it at high tide There is an explanation on Wikipedia of ruminant digestion.
Their normal diet is low in available copper (<5 ppm) and so they have developed an extremely efficient physiology to take up and use copper. Sheep cannot excrete excess copper and so are susceptible to copper poisoning , and North Ronaldsay sheep even more so. Put north ron sheep on ordinary grazing land and they develop copper poisoning with liver damage and liver failure
There are some human diseases that are due to abnormalities of copper Wilsons disease , Menkes disease , and a few other things as well. The treatment ( at least of Wilsons disease) is penicillamine , which also prevents liver damage in North Ronaldsay sheep.
The semi-feral flock of North Ronaldsay sheep are managed by the Sheep Court. And a number each year go for mutton. - even as far as London. But this one came from a local butcher
So just before Christmas - North Ronaldsay mutton, Clapshot and some locally grown vegetables
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