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Oatmeal Porridge
Salt Put an earthenware dish on the stove, allow one cupful of water to each person. When the water boils, sprinkle in the oatmeal with the left hand, stirring briskly all the time. Use one handful of meal to each cup of water; stir free from lumps. Let the oatmeal boil for a quarter of an hour before adding salt to taste; cook the oatmeal for at least one hour, stirring occasionally. If poured in plates, these should be previously warmed. Serve with milk.
Any stewed fruit is also a nice accompaniment, and good for the health.
Another method is to mix the meal with cold water, stir steadily until it boils, add salt as in former recipe, and cook also for one hour.
Serve in the same way.
Still another way. The night before it is wanted mix up the oatmeal with milk, one handful of oatmeal to one cupful of cold milk, add a little salt, pour into an earthenware jar, and let it soak all night. In the morning set the jar in a pan of boiling water, and let it steam for three hours, or longer if time permits. When cooked this way serve with stewed figs.
Three methods for the same bowl of porridge, all written for coarse oatmeal rather than the rolled flakes now sold as oats. The timings only make sense if you use the right grain.
- What "oatmeal" means hereThis is pinhead or coarse-ground oatmeal — what is sold today as steel-cut or Irish oatmeal. Rolled oats cooked for an hour become glue; if you substitute them, follow the packet timing of 5-10 minutes instead.
- The handfulA handful is genuinely imprecise and the original offers no equivalent. In practice a rounded 1/4 cup of steel-cut oatmeal per cup of water gives a loose porridge; go to 1/3 cup if you want it stiff enough to hold a spoon.
- The hinge: sprinkle, do not dumpCoarse oatmeal lumps the instant it hits boiling water in a mass. Let it fall from the fingers in a thin stream while the other hand stirs continuously, and break up any lumps before they set. The cold-water method in the second paragraph avoids the problem entirely and is the easier route.
- Earthenware on the stoveAn unglazed or ordinary glazed earthenware dish set directly on a modern burner will very likely crack. Use flameware, enamelled cast iron or a heavy saucepan; on an induction hob, earthenware will not work at all.
- Salting lateThe recipe holds the salt back for fifteen minutes but does not say why; a common cook's belief held that early salt kept grain from softening. The evidence for that is thin, so salt when you like, about 1/2 teaspoon per cup of water.
- The hourSteel-cut oatmeal is properly tender in 25-30 minutes. The full hour here produces the very soft, almost creamy texture that was the period ideal; it is a matter of taste rather than food safety. Stir every few minutes near the end and add hot water if it stiffens too far.
- The overnight milk versionSoaked in milk and then steamed in a jar set in boiling water, this is a bain-marie method — gentle heat that keeps milk from scorching or catching. Keep the soaking jar in the refrigerator overnight rather than on the counter, and keep the water in the pan topped up over three hours.
- Yield and servingOne cup of water per person, as written, gives a generous breakfast bowl. Warming the plates matters more than it sounds: porridge in a shallow cold dish is cool by the third spoonful.
Porridge made with coarse-ground oats is the everyday Scottish and northern English breakfast that British and American cookbooks absorbed in the nineteenth century, along with its rituals — sprinkling the meal with one hand while stirring with the other, salting rather than sweetening, and serving with a separate bowl of cold milk. The three methods differ chiefly in how much attention they demand: standing at the stove, a slower start from cold water, or an overnight soak followed by long steaming. The recommendation of stewed fruit as an accompaniment reflects a period interest in fruit as a corrective to a heavy diet.