No. 3280

Oatmeal; Wheaten Grits; Hominy, Boiled

Farine d'Avoine Broyee et Bouillie; Froment Broye Bouilli; Mais Blanc en Semoule Bouilli

Boiled Oatmeal.—Put two quarts of water into a saucepan; add a coffeespoonful of salt and set it on the fire; at the first boil drop in three-quarters of a pound of oatmeal, letting it fall like rain, and being careful to stir continuously with a spatula, bearing it down on the bottom of the saucepan. Remove at the first boil to the side of the range, and let it continue to bubble for twenty-five minutes, stirring it at frequent intervals with the spatula. Serve with fresh sweet cream.

Wheaten Grits, Boiled.—Wheaten grits are cooked in the same manner and in the same proportions as the oatmeal. Serve with fresh sweet cream.

Hominy.—Hominy is prepared exactly the same, using the same proportions as the oatmeal, but it only requires twenty minutes' cooking. Serve fresh sweet cream at the same time.

← No. 3279 Grissinis with Sugar Breakfast Cakes No. 3281 Polish Blinis →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is describing three breakfast porridges built on one method: salted water at a boil, grain rained in, then a long slack simmer. A few of the terms have shifted since 1894.

What "oatmeal" means hereIn 1894 this is most likely coarse cut oats — steel-cut or pinhead — rather than the rolled flakes that dominate now; the 25-minute simmer suits cut oats, while rolled oats cooked that long collapse into paste and instant oats will not survive it at all.
The ratioTwo quarts of water to three-quarters of a pound of grain is roughly 8 cups liquid to 2 cups oats, or 4:1 by volume. That is a loose, spoonable porridge rather than a stiff one, which is what the cream at the table is meant for.
A coffeespoonfulSmaller than a teaspoon — figure a scant half teaspoon. For two quarts of water that is a light hand; a modern cook may want a full teaspoon or more, added at the start so it dissolves into the grain rather than sitting on top.
"Letting it fall like rain"This is the hinge. A thin steady stream into boiling, moving water keeps each grain separate as it hydrates; dumping the measure in at once sets lumps you cannot stir out later. Keep the spatula moving and pressed to the bottom of the pan.
"Remove to the side of the range"A coal range had a cooler zone at the edge. On a modern burner this means dropping to the lowest heat that still shows an occasional bubble. A hard boil for 25 minutes will scorch the bottom and thicken the porridge past pourable.
Wheaten gritsCracked or coarsely ground wheat, closer to today's bulgur-grind or cream of wheat than to anything sold as grits now. Corn grits, if that is what you have, are the third recipe rather than the second.
HominyThe French heading — maïs blanc en semoule — makes clear this is white hominy ground to a coarse meal, that is, hominy grits, not whole nixtamalized kernels. Whole hominy needs well over an hour; stone-ground grits will often want longer than the 20 minutes given, so cook to texture.
Sweet creamSimply cream that has not soured — heavy or light cream, unwhipped and unsweetened. Poured cold over hot porridge, no sugar mentioned.
YieldTwo quarts of water makes eight to ten breakfast portions. Halve or quarter the whole thing unless you are feeding a table.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down the entire working repertoire of the restaurant, from truffled game to this. The grouping tells you something: boiled cereal sat in the breakfast-cake section alongside blinis and grissini. The three grains map neatly onto three strands of American eating — Scots and Irish oats, cracked wheat, and hominy from the Southern and Indigenous corn tradition — and Ranhofer gives each a French title, as he does everything. That cream, rather than sugar or milk, is the only accompaniment is a fair marker of the period; the sugared, milk-drowned breakfast bowl belongs to the packaged-cereal decades that followed.