August 1 - Lammas Day in Scotland

Posted on August 1, 2022

Key points

This is an update of my post published on August 1, 2011:

Lammas Day is the first harvest festival of the year in Scotland and some other English-speaking countries. Some people call it the “feast of the first fruits.”

Lammas is particularly about wheat and wheat bread, and traditionally, people baked loaves of “early wheat” to be blessed at their churches.

In some parts of the world, wheat bread is considered “the staff of life,” or an important staple food. (What two other staples exist in other parts of the world? Answers below.)

It seems like a perfect day to have a meal made from foods grown locally, using fruits, herbs, and vegetables from a farmer’s market or (even better) from your own backyard garden!

ANSWERS:

In some parts of the world, rice is a staple food, and in other parts, the role is filled by corn, which is often made into flat bread called tortillas.