The Ninety-Day Grain

The bar in Kirkwall had five tables and a fire, and the door opened straight onto a street of grey stone with the cathedral at the top of it. Polly took the table nearest the heat, because after a day on the water there is no other table. "Can I see the menu?" she asked, and got a card with fewer things on it than she expected and more of them local.

Birtija u Kirkwallu imala je pet stolova i vatru, a vrata su se otvarala ravno na ulicu od sivog kamena s katedralom na vrhu. Polly je uzela stol najbliži toplini, jer nakon dana na vodi drugog stola nema. „Mogu li vidjeti jelovnik?” pitala je i dobila karticu s manje stavki nego što je očekivala i s više domaćih među njima.

"Could you recommend a good dish?" The owner was a heron, which is a bird built for standing behind a counter, and she recommended the bannock without hesitation. Bere is a barley they have grown here for centuries, a six-row grain sometimes called the ninety-day barley because it ripens fast enough to finish inside a northern summer. Milled into beremeal it makes a flat, dark bannock that tastes of the field it came out of.

„Možete li mi preporučiti dobro jelo?” Vlasnica je bila čaplja, ptica stvorena za stajanje iza šanka, i bez oklijevanja je preporučila bannock. Bere je ječam koji ovdje uzgajaju stoljećima, šestoredna žitarica koju ponekad zovu devedesetodnevnim ječmom jer sazrijeva dovoljno brzo da stigne unutar sjevernog ljeta. Samljeven u beremeal daje plosnat, taman bannock koji ima okus polja iz kojeg je došao.

"Do you have vegetarian options?" Polly asked, and the heron pointed back at the same line on the card. Bannock, butter, and crowdie, the soft fresh cheese the farms have always made. The same grain has a second life across town at the distillery under the tower, working since seventeen ninety-eight, where the whole street smells of warm malt on the right morning.

„Imate li vegetarijanska jela?” pitala je Polly, a čaplja je pokazala natrag na isti redak na kartici. Bannock, maslac i crowdie, meki svježi sir kakav su farme oduvijek radile. Isto zrno ima drugi život na drugom kraju grada, u destileriji ispod tornja, koja radi od tisuću sedamsto devedeset osme, gdje na pravo jutro cijela ulica miriše na topli slad.

"Can we get the bill, please?" Polly said when the plate was empty, and the heron took her time bringing it, which is a compliment. Outside, the wind had dropped to the level the islands consider still. Polly walked up the grey street past the red sandstone of the cathedral with the taste of a hard climate on the roof of her mouth.

„Možemo li dobiti račun, molim vas?” rekla je Polly kad je tanjur bio prazan, a čaplja se nije žurila donijeti ga, što je kompliment. Vani je vjetar pao na razinu koju otoci smatraju mirnom. Polly je krenula uz sivu ulicu, pokraj crvenog pješčenjaka katedrale, s okusom oštre klime na nepcu.