Porridge, the Food, not the TV series!
Written by Asinus Asinum Fricat on May 11, 2008 – 8:01 am -Ms AAF cooks porridge once or twice a week, for the girls, before they set off to school. She maintains that it’s incredibly healthy, reasonably priced and filling. I personally hate it though I love Scottish oatcakes. Porridge is a dish which has become associated with Scotland somehow. It is made of oats stewed with either milk or water, and is served with salt or sugar and milk. Our girls love to eat it with maple syrup. Perhaps I should try. However, the porridge history interests me.
The first evidence for dishes resembling porridge is prehistoric. Neolithic farmers cultivated oats along with other crops. Various types of grains and grain meals could be stewed in water to form a thick porridge-like dish.
Anglo Saxon sources describe “briw” or “brewit” made from rye meal, barley meal or oats served plain or with vegetables in. There are also references to some types of porridges being fermented.
Leafing through a slew of eighteenth century cookbooks such as Hannah Glasse’s “The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy”, 1747, I note recipes for “Water Gruel” made of oatmeal and water, and flavored with butter and pepper. It might be served with wine sauce, sherry and dried fruits by rich people, whereas the poor ate the dish on its own. It could be served with any meal at any time of the day.
Similar dishes included plumb porridge or barley gruel, made from barley and water, with dried fruit added. Burstin was made by roasting hulled barley grains and then grinding them, it could then be served with milk Frumenty was hulled wheat cooked with milk, cream and eggs and flavoured with spices.
Porridges and gruels were an easy way to cook grains. The grain only had to be cracked, not completely ground into flour. It could be cooked very simply in a pot at the edge of a fire. Bread required an oven to cook in. It formed a basis for many dishes, both sweet and savoury. It was served with meat, stock or fat, as well as with vegetables, fruits, honey or spices. It could be allowed to cool and set in a “porridge drawer”, and could then be sliced to be eaten cold or even fried.
Since sugar only became widely available in Britain in the eighteenth century, so it was probably not used on porridge before then. I don’t see a recipe from me on porridge though. Maybe one on creamed rice, which I love.
Tags: Breakfast, Food, Grains, Porridge
Posted in Food |
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I love porridge! In fact, one of my survivalist - er, “always keep well stocked” foods is not Scottish, but Irish oatmeal.
It’s one of the most satisfying foods there is on a cold, rainy morning. My preference is to have it with dried blueberries (another of my survivalist - er, well, you know) and lots of butter.
It is survivalist food!
I’m also a fan of porridge (we just call it “oatmeal” on the west coast) on a cold winter morning. Sticks to the ribs magnificently.
I’m an even bigger fan, however, of other oaty things: oatcakes as you mention, and Scottish flapjacks (which are sort of a cross between a cookie and a candy).
The trouble with oats, I find, is that, regardless of how prepared, they’re really at their best when combined with generous quantities of cream, butter, nuts, brown sugar, and other low-frequency treats. But I do love the flavor of oats.
Sticks to the ribs magnificently! I like that expression.