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Gruel
In primitive Britain the cereal, and leguminous foods were originally eaten unshelled, and uncooked, as testified by the extremely ground-down state of our early ancestors' teeth, and those of the pre-Saxon inhabitants. But meanwhile in more civilized Gaul these foods were advanced to the state of being pounded by stones, and in mortars, so as to make a sort of mass with water, or milk, -the primitive Gruel. "Rome," said Cato of Utica, was raised upon Gruel." Later on in mid-English times Gruel was groat ale, or oatmeal soup, made with malt liquor instead of water, and then rendered in base Latin gruellum, from grutellum, a diminutive of grutum, meal; so oatmeal, grits, groats. Grout, similarly, was a quondam Danish dish, and it is still claimed as an honour by a certain old Danish family to carry a platter thereof at a Royal Coronation :- 66 "King Hardyknute, midst Danes, and Saxons stout, Caroused on nut-brown ale, and dined on grout, Which dish its pristine honour still retains, And when each prince is crowned in splendour reigns." Art of Cookery (1708).
Again, the True Gentlewoman's Delight (1653) taught how "to make Grout": "Take some wheat, and beanes, and when you have made it into malt, then tittle it; then take some water, or some small wort, and heat it scalding hot, and put it into a pail; then stir in the malt; then take a piece of sower leaven ; then stir it about, and cover it, and let it stand till it will cream, then put in some orange pills (peels ?), then put it over the fire, and boil it, keeping it stirring till all the white be gone." Nowadays Gruel is an invalid preparation for weakly persons of disabled digestion, or to obviate a recent cold, and promote free action of the skin, or for infants. It is made by boiling meal, or groats, or other farinaceous substance, in water. If nicely sweetened with treacle, and taken immediately before going to bed, Gruel is an admirable little repast for anyone troubled with a cold in the chest, or head. Or, it may be seasoned with salt, pepper, spices, herbs, celery seed, shalots, or onions. A good Gruel for bowel complaints is to be made with a spoonful of ground rice mixed with a pint of milk, and boiled, some cinnamon. being added, and perhaps Port wine, or Brandy. "Plain Gruel," quoth Dr. Kitchener, " is the most comforting soother of an. irritable stomach we know of." "Water Gruel is the king of spoon-meats, the queen of soups, and gratifies nature beyond all others. This essence of oatmeal makes a noble, and exhilarating meal." Sir Kenelm Digby wrote in his Closet opened. (1645) about "Water-gruel"; "This should be boiled till it rises in great ebullition, in great galloping waters; when the upper surface hath no gross visible oatmeal in it, this should be then skimmed off, and it will be found much better than the part which remaineth below of the oatmeal. Yet even that will. make good Water-gruel for the servants." Groats is the grain of oats freed from its husk, and when crushed forms "Embden. Groats," as used for making gruel. Likewise barley, arrowroot, and flour, or biscuit, will serve for preparing this food. Any Gruel should be drunk slowly, so that the starch may become mixed with saliva, and thus partially digested before being swallowed. For "a pleasant Gruel," "take a small cupful of good wheaten bran, and mix this with a little cold water; then stir in two quarts of boiling water into which a bruised stick of cinnamon has been put; let it boil for half an hour till. sufficiently thick; strain, and when the Gruel is to be served. add a teaspoonful of lemon, or orange juice, and as much sugar as is liked." But in the making of Gruel sugar is mentioned with hesitation, for "a sweet Gruel is an abomination," says the Century Invalid Cookery Book. And yet a Gruel containing just a little sugar has a pleasanter flavour than one without any. It should be noted that the starch of such grain as is used in preparing Gruel is not readily digested unless it be well cooked. When dear old Mr. Woodhouse, the kindly valetudinarian paterfamilias, in Jane Austen's Emma, was visited by his married daughter, and her husband, he bade her "go to bed early, as she must be tired; and," said he, "I recommend to you a little Gruel before you go; you and I will have a nice basin of Gruel together. My dear Emma" (the elder daughter), "suppose we all have a little Gruel together!" "Thin Gruel," writes Austin Dobson in a certain Preface, 66 once moved a noble Earl to poetry for a contemporary keepsake." Derisively in some of the casual wards of the London workhouses the Gruel given to able-bodied paupers passes under the name of "Skilly," a word perhaps first derived from the skillet (Latin, Scutella, a small dish, or plate), which vessel was formerly used in heating a drink over the fire. From the same word Scutella our scullery, or dishery , is obtained; hence also a scullion, a dish-washer. In Lear's Book of Nonsense, so beloved by children, they gain acquaintance with an odd dish of the food under notice :- "There was an old person of Ewell Who chiefly subsisted on gruel.
But to make it more nice he inserted some mice, Which refreshed that old person of Ewell."
Oatmeal Gruel may be made by boiling from one to two ounces of the meal with three pints of water, down to two pints, then straining the decoction, and pouring off the thinner liquid when cool. Its flavour can be improved by adding split raisins towards the end of boiling, or sugar, and nutmeg (grated). To 66 get one's gruel" is a slang term for being severely punished, or disabled, or slain, perhaps deservedly. He shall have his gruel, said one." (Guy Mannering, Cap. xxvii).
HARE (See GAME.) A PROVERB of our sagacious sires has taught that "He who would have a Hare for breakfast must hunt overnight."
Buried in the antiquarian ramble are three workable formulas: an oatmeal gruel, a bran gruel with cinnamon, and a ground-rice gruel made with milk. All are thin, spoonable porridges meant for the sickroom rather than the breakfast table, and all depend on the same technique.
- The hinge: cook the starch outThe text says it plainly and it is the only thing that really matters — gruel made from underboiled meal is raw starch in suspension, chalky and genuinely hard on the stomach it is meant to soothe. The oatmeal version wants the full reduction from three pints to two; the book gives no timing, so allow a long steady boil with frequent stirring until a third of the liquid has gone.
- Imperial pintsA British pint is 20 fl oz, so three pints is about 7.5 US cups and two pints about 5 US cups. One to two ounces of oatmeal to that much water gives a liquid barely thicker than cream; that thinness is deliberate.
- Groats and Embden groatsGroats are hulled whole oats. "Embden groats" were a commercial crushed-oat product, closest today to pinhead or steel-cut oatmeal, or medium oatmeal. Rolled oats will work but break down faster and give a sliker, less clean-tasting result.
- TreacleBritish treacle here means what Americans call dark or light molasses; golden syrup is the milder modern stand-in. The bedtime cold remedy is oatmeal gruel sweetened with a spoonful of it.
- The bran gruel is a strained infusionBran carries far less starch than oatmeal, so this two-quart preparation stays thin, though the original does expect it to boil 'till sufficiently thick'. It is strained and served as a flavoured liquid rather than a spoonable porridge.
- The rice gruelA spoonful of ground rice to a pint of milk, simmered with cinnamon, is the most substantial of the three. Ground rice is milled rice, a little coarser than rice flour; fine rice flour substitutes directly. Milk scorches, so use a heavy pan and low heat.
- Digby's skimmingThe instruction to boil hard, then skim the smooth upper liquid off the coarse meal below, is a real method and produces a much finer gruel; the book dates the Closet to 1645, though it was in fact published in 1669. The fine skimmings are the best of it, which is why the coarser remainder went to the servants.
- Sugar and spiritsSplit raisins added near the end, grated nutmeg, or a spoonful of port or brandy all appear in the text as sickroom flavourings. The Century Invalid Cookery Book's flat objection that 'a sweet Gruel is an abomination' is quoted without a reason given, and the author of the page disagrees with it.
- YieldThe oatmeal recipe reduces to two pints, about five US cups, before straining and pouring off the thinner liquid, so the finished quantity is somewhat less; the bran version makes rather more. Gruel thickens as it stands and is easily let down with hot water.
- About the bannerThe site's blanket toxic-ingredient warning is attached to this section of the book generally. Nothing in the gruel formulas themselves is dangerous — the ingredients are oats, bran, rice, milk, water, sugar and spice.
Gruel is among the oldest ways cereal was eaten cooked: cracked or pounded grain and water, stirred over heat, kin to porridge and pottage. By the time this book was written the word had narrowed almost entirely to the sickroom and the workhouse. Nineteenth-century medicine held that an inflamed or irritable digestion should be given nothing but bland, thin, well-cooked starch, and gruel was a standard vehicle — cheap, quickly made at any hour, and easy to fortify with milk, wine or brandy as the patient improved. The same economy made it a staple of institutional relief, and the page records the derisive workhouse name "skilly" for the gruel doled out to able-bodied paupers. The etymology offered here, from base Latin grutellum and thence to grits and groats, is the traditional account; the Danish coronation "grout" and the Hardyknute verse are the sort of antiquarian lore Victorian food writers repeated from one another without much checking.