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.

Baa ya Kirkwall ilikuwa na meza tano na moto, na mlango wake ulifunguka moja kwa moja kwenye barabara ya mawe ya kijivu yenye kanisa kuu juu yake. Polly akachukua meza iliyo karibu zaidi na joto, kwa sababu baada ya siku nzima majini hakuna meza nyingine. "Naweza kuona menyu?" akauliza, akapewa karatasi yenye vitu vichache kuliko alivyotegemea, na vingi vyake vikiwa vya hapa.

"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.

"Waweza kunipendekezea chakula kizuri?" Mmiliki alikuwa korongo, ndege aliyeumbwa kwa ajili ya kusimama nyuma ya kaunta, naye akapendekeza bannock bila kusita. Bere ni shayiri ambayo wameilima hapa kwa karne nyingi, nafaka yenye safu sita ambayo wakati mwingine huitwa shayiri ya siku tisini kwa sababu hukomaa haraka vya kutosha kumalizika ndani ya kiangazi cha kaskazini. Ikisagwa kuwa unga wa bere, hutengeneza bannock bapa na nyeusi yenye ladha ya shamba lililoizaa.

"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.

"Je, mna vyakula vya mboga?" Polly akauliza, naye korongo akaonyesha tena mstari uleule kwenye karatasi. Bannock, siagi, na crowdie, jibini laini na jipya ambalo mashamba yameyatengeneza siku zote. Nafaka hiyohiyo ina maisha ya pili upande mwingine wa mji, kiwandani cha wiski kilicho chini ya mnara, kinachofanya kazi tangu mwaka elfu moja mia saba tisini na nane, ambako barabara nzima hunukia kimea cha joto asubuhi inayofaa.

"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.

"Tafadhali, tunaweza kupata bili?" Polly akasema sahani ilipokwisha, naye korongo akachukua muda wake kuileta, jambo ambalo ni sifa njema. Nje, upepo ulikuwa umepungua hadi kiwango ambacho visiwa hivi hukiita utulivu. Polly akatembea juu ya barabara ya kijivu akipita mawe mekundu ya kanisa kuu, akiwa na ladha ya hali ngumu ya hewa kwenye kaakaa lake.