Hmm, I think we've hit the language barrier!
Flapjacks are made with rolled oats, butter and something sweet, eg sugar or golden syrup. They are usually quite thick, baked in a tray and cut into oblongs. They can have other stuff like currants or choc chips or cherries ... I really love flapjacks!
Oatcakes are round and flat and made from oatmeal, oil and salt. Actually they often have wheat and other stuff in, but then they don't taste as good - buy Nairn's, they are the best! Especially the little ones which just seem even nicer because they are bitesize! They have recently brought out some sweet oatcakes with dried fruit or cinnamon spice - very nice, but I haven't checked the ingredients for safety yet.
Pancakes - Scotch pancakes, not French pancakes/crepes - are also round and flat, but soft and made on a griddle - made from flour and eggs I think ... definitely not oats.
Shortbread is a traditional Scottish biscuit (cookie), again lots of butter, white flour, sugar, crumbles and melts in the mouth, no oats though. Usually sold in tins with a tartan pattern.
That is very funny about your husband and the currants - but he was wise to be suspicious in a land where the national dish is cooked in a sheep's stomach! And black pudding (= blood sausage) is often served for breakfast, sometimes along with a slice of currant pudding as well. (I haven't tried that combination myself.) When I was a child we used to eat Garibaldi biscuits which are like two very hard crackers with a filling of small hard currants - we used to call them "squashed fly biscuits"! (Of course for biscuits, read cookies ...) That would be a recipe for tummyache for me now.
BTW, I have been assuming that "groat" oats are rolled oats, ie oatflakes, a bit like the flakes in muesli, because there is also fine ground oatmeal, sometimes called "pinhead", which would make a much thicker smoother porridge - probably needs a greater proportion of liquid to oats.
I have always wondered what "grits" are - now I'm imagining they are something to do with "groats" too ... perhaps you can enlighten me!
Josephine
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