Nine Things to do with Porridge.

Waste not, want not. A good rule to live by, Yes? There is, however, something particularly challenging about the congealed paste that is leftover porridge - whether it be the oatmeal or cornmeal variety - is there not?

There are several ideas in Foods and Household Management: a textbook of the household arts, (New York, 1914) by Helen Kinne and Anna Maria Cooley.

The uses of cold cereal. – Never throw away cooked cereals.

The cold cereal is useful in many ways.

(a) Mould in small cups with dates or other fruit, and serve with sugar and cream for luncheon.

(b) Cool corn meal mush in a flat dish, cut it in slices when cold, and brown the slices in a frying pan with beef fat, or a butter substitute. Serve with sugar, molasses, or sirup for breakfast or luncheon.

(c) Rice or hominy may be mixed with a beaten egg, moulded into small cakes, and a browned wither in the frying pan or in the oven.

(d) A small remaining portion of any cereal may be used to thicken soup.

(e) Any cooked cereal may be used in muffins or even yeast bread [the author suggest substituting ½ cup cooked cereal in place of an equal quantity of flour.]

Suggestion 6: Elsewhere in the above cookery book, the authors also suggest leftover cold cereal may be added to the meat mixture when making rissoles.20

Suggestion7: Cereal Pancakes.
Cooked cereal of any kind may be added to a pancake batter by omitting an equal quantity of flour and using not more than 1 cupful of cereal to each cupful of flour.
Mrs. De Graf’s Cook Book (1922)

Suggestion 8: Cereal Griddle Cakes.
1 cup any cold cooked cereal, mashed fine to free from lumps; add 1 beaten egg, yolk and white separate, ½ teaspoon Royal Baking Powder, beat thoroughly. Drop by spoonfuls on hot griddle and serve when brown with syrup.
The Royal Baker and Pastrycook, 1911

Suggestion 9: Oatmeal Fritters

I leave you in the happy expectation that leftover porridge will no longer be a domestic problem in your home.

P.S I know I half-promised some more beer recipes, but - Hey, I get distracted by a better idea some times. They will come, I promise.

Quotation for the Day.

He receives comfort like cold porridge.
William Shakespeare

The original junk food.

It is time for us to talk about junk food – and if you need any convincing that the English language is a dynamic, ever-evolving thing – constantly co-opting old words to new uses, then here is the evidence.

‘Junk food’ is modern food with a ubiquity and popularity far beyond what it deserves on the basis of its nutritional value – Yes?. It is usually high in calories, fat, salt and/or sugar, and low in fibre and vitamins. It has the apparent virtues of cheapness, convenience, and availability. It is is ‘fast’ to prepare and eat, and ‘fast’ to consume - meaning that it bypasses the satiety centre in your brain, leaving you (the purchaser) wanting more a short time later. It not only has no inherent health-giving properties, it is actively blamed for causing the obesity, heart disease, and diabetes epidemics.

‘Junk’ is a generic word for rubbish, right? Let us to the Oxford English Dictionary for confirmation of our assumption.

It turns out that we are correct, but only from a relatively recent perspective. The word junk is in the uncomfortably, intriguingly, large cohort of words with ‘obscure origins’. In medieval times it apparently referred to prickly rushes, similar to those used for making mattresses; it also referred (in a predominantly seafaring sense) to old, damaged rope (I do wonder if that is where our phrase ‘money for old rope’ comes from, but I digress.)

By the eighteenth century ‘junk’ had another nautical meaning. ‘Junk’, or ‘salt junk’ was the inevitable, indestructible, salt beef (or ‘salt horse’, to use another less than affectionate term) that was the mainstay of the sailors’ diet. The supporting quotation used by the OED for this usage comes from the novelist Tobias Smollett, who gave ‘… old junk, pork-slush, or stinking stock-fish … ’ as a metaphor for something of poor value.

By the mid-nineteenth century ‘junk’ had extended to include anything of poor quality or low value. It was not for another century (into the 1970’s) that it was specifically applied to food.

But the plot thickens here. There is one other old food-related meaning of the word ‘junk’. According to the Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English: Containing Words from the English Writers (By Thomas Wright, 1857) in the South it could mean (1) A lump, and in Gloucestershire it was (2) A favorite dish. Unfortunately I have been unable (so far) to find out any more about this favourite Gloucestershire dish called ‘junk’, as Mr. Wright’s attribution is the only one which pops up.

Mr. Wright’s book gives another example of the creative use of language – at least, that is how I interpret the dish he describes as Lumpy-Jumms (from the North), which will function as our ‘recipe’ for the day. I really don’t know anything else about this dish - I have found no other references at all – but it seems to me that it might be an example of adding value to a food of necessity, or perhaps a culinary error, by glorifying it with its own name. The cook who perhaps under-boiled the oatmeal dumplings was in a similar situation to the one who forgot to reheat the soup, so served it chilled (one of the explanatory myths about vichyssoise), or more recently to the one who underbaked the chocolate puddings and served them with magnificently molten centres. What to do? Pre-empt the complaints or comments, and serve a ‘new’ dish, of course!

Lumpy-jumms.
A dish made of oatmeal, sprinkled with water, and boiled in lumps of about the size of a nut, which, when eaten, are found to be dry meal in the inside. North.

Quotation for the Day.

Luck is like having a rice dumpling fly into your mouth.
Japanese Proverb.

More on Breadless Breakfasts.

In yesterday’s post we considered the US response to the necessity to conserve wheat during WW I. The necessity was even greater in Britain, which was very dependent on imports of wheat to meet demand. As in the US during the war, newspapers in Britain worked hard to invoke patriotic sentiments in order to encourage householders to do their bit to reduce wheat consumption, and assisted by supplying recipes for substitutes.

The concept of any meal without bread was just as difficult to accept in Britain (and Europe) as it was in the USA. In Britain, potatoes were an obvious starchy substitute, but maize an unfamiliar and not particularly popular (and very “American”) alternative. The Times of April 13, 1917 ran an article headed Breadless Meals: Palatable Substitutes for Wheat, and suggested that the obvious place to start was at breakfast. The article read, in part:

“The greatest saving in flour can be effected at breakfast, at wihc meal bread usually takes a prominent place. It is suggested that economy in the consumption of bread exercised at the earliest meal of the day is likely to be continued at other meals. To avoid as far as possible such breakfast dishes as necessitate the eating of bread with them is an excellent plan. Perhaps the best dish of all is porridge. The porridge habit has been growing, but those who do not care for it and those who find a difficulty in getting oatmeal may try maize porridge or flaked rice as porridge.”

The newspaper article then provided recipe for the maize porridge and flaked rice porridge as well as maize or rice cakes, an semolina, hominy, or maize fritters. It also gave the following recipe as a possibly more palatable oatmeal dish for “those who do not like oatmeal porridge.” It could also , I guess, also be adapted to recycle leftover porridge.

Oatmeal Fritters.
Make a very stiff porridge, adding to it ½ teaspoonful finely cut chopped onion and parsley. Spread it on a plate to cool. Then cut into pieces, dip in frying batter, and fry. To add to the food value a beaten egg may be stirred in when the mixture is almost cooked.

Quotation for the Day.

Either oatmeal or hominy should always be served at breakfast.
Maria Parloa, Miss Parloa’s New Cookbook.

Railway Breakfast(s)

The Oxford Symposium is over for another year, and a fantastic event it was indeed. It manages the most egalitarian atmosphere of any 'conference' I have ever attended, as well as being the most fun. There were some very erudite and interesting papers on 'Vegetables' , but we also managed to eat some great food, had the opportunity to make Arcimboldo-inspired pictures with fruit and veg, and listened to the sounds that plants make by themselves - and some that humans make using vegetables as instruments. The 'Carrot Crunch Concerto' was really something, and I sincerely hope that someone has U-tubed it.

Today, if all goes according to plan, I should be heading off to York by train. I love train travel, and it gives me an excuse to relate a fine rail-food story that I have wanted to tell you for a long time.

The late ninteteenth century was a time of great competition between railroads. Speed was the thing, and railway races attracted a great deal of interest. In Scotland in 1895 a young man called Norman McDonald set off on the East Coast Flyer from London to Edinburgh – and managed four breakfasts on the trip.

“I did the feat of having four breakfasts in four divers places. (1) Soon after midnight one of my co-lunatics in our “sleeper’ produced a flask and very massive sandwiches. (2) After Berwick-on-Tweed the attendant gave us coffee and biscuits. (3) not long after 5 am we were hammering on the doors of the Imperial Hotel in Aberdeen calling for food. On getting in I said the Cockney pressmen must have real porridge for once, “and mind they have milk, all proper, and no beastly treacle or sugar.” The poor waiter said “There is no milk!” I blazed into Highland fire, which he damped down by saying “Man! The coos is no milket yet!” (4) I caught the “Flying Scotsman” portion from Aberdeen and landed in Edinburgh at 9.40 am, dashed to my nearby house to find the joyful remains of the family feed still on the table. I had done nearly 200 miles between my second and third breakfasts, and about 130 miles bteween the third and fourth ones!”

Four breakfasts - what a good thing to aspire too! I feel sure it would help one to adapt to time differences on international trips. One could extend the concept to multiple lunches and dinners too.

Here is Porridge, with preliminary Comments, from the redoubtable Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (1870’s)

Porridge, Oatmeal
Oatmeal porridge is a leading article of food with the Scottish peasantry. It is generally accompanied with milk when milk is to be had; when milk is very scarce, butter is sometimes used, sometimes sugar, and sometimes treacle beer. …. Whey is sometimes used instead of water for the making of oatmeal porridge, and affords an agreeable variety for those using porridge every day. Milk porridge is another variety esteemed an especial luxury by the Scottish peasantry, and is certainly both an agreeable and very nutritious article of diet. Whether fine oatmeal or coarse oatmeal should be used for the making of porridge is merely a matter of taste.

Put a pint and a half of water or milk and water into a saucepan and add a pinch of salt. When the liquid fully boils, as it is rising in the pan, sprinkle gradually two ounces of oatmeal into it with the left hand, and at the same time stir briskly with a fork held in the right hand. Keep stirring till the lumps are beaten out. Boil the mixture for a quarter of an hour, pour it on a plate, and eat it with milk and sugar.

[I wonder what it is like with treacle beer?]

At War with Weary.

Today, May 3rd …

Ernest Edward Dunlop, best known by his nickname of “Weary”, is one of Australia’s best known medical and military heroes. Weary was working as a surgeon at a Sydney hospital when war broke out in 1939, and he immediately enlisted in the Australian Army Medical Corps. In 1942 he was sent to Java, and he was in command of the Allied General Hospital at Bandoeng when the area fell to the Japanese. He and his men became POW’s and eventually ended up working on the infamous Burma-Thailand railway.

Weary continued his surgical work in the prison camp, operating in the most awful conditions even when he was ill himself. The tales of his bravery in standing up to their captors on behalf of his men has also made him the stuff of legends, and it is true to say that the men under his command came to feel for him a god-like reverence.

Weary kept a diary – at great risk – during his captivity, and it is a fascinating and inspirational read. On this day in 1942 (still in Bandoeng) he wrote:

“Food remains the greatest worry. Personally I have lost 25 pounds since leaving the Middle East and was under weight then. Now 13 stone 8 lb. One great worry is that the D, who have plenty of rice, put up a damn bad show as to cooking, and in any case, they are nearly all officers with local contracts, they do better than us. Revolting spectacle has been seen of our lads salvaging D scraps from the refuse bins. Interviewed deputation today as to the dishing out of food – all troops are watching this most minutely.”

Weary was a very tall man, over 2 metres in height (he apparently joked “Because I was pretty tall I had to bend over so the Japanese could hit me"), so at 13 stone 8 lb his BMI was under 22. He got a lot thinner by the end of the war.

If it is possible to still refer to to a food as a ‘staple’ when it is served in grossly inadequate portions, then the staple food in the POW camps was rice. It is one of war’s many little ironies that what is in short supply in one place becomes the (presumably less desirable) substitute ingredient for another one in short supply somewhere else. In England, where wheat saving was encouraged during the war, rice was suggested in its place. The following recipe from an Australian wartime cookery book suggests that the situation was the reverse in Australia:

Wheat for Rice.
Here is a wily substitute by which you can make pearled wheat grain tast as creamy as the best rice. Soak the grain before cooking. Then put it in a saucepan with plenty of hot – not boiling – water. Add a little salt. Cook until the grains will flatten when tested between thumb and finger. Drain well. Return to the saucepan with milk to cover it liberally. Bring it up to boiling point.
Now take a tablespoonful of custard powder. Blend to a smooth cream with a spoonful of sugar and a little cold milk. Add to the contents of the saucepan. Stir over heat until it thickens. Add extra milk if it is too stiff. Serve hot or cold with jam, golden syrup, caramel sauce, or fruit puree. The custard powder will achieve all you desired!

One era’s ‘wily subterfuge’ is only a previous era’s frumenty after all.

Tomorrow’s Story …

A reasonable supply of Breadfruit.

This Day, Last Year …

We had a story about the explorer William Dampier, and shark.

Quotation for the Day …

Rice is a beautiful food. It is beautiful when it grows, precision rows of sparkling green stalks shooting up to reach the hot summer sun. It is beautiful when harvested, autumn gold sheaves piled on diked, patchwork paddies. It is beautiful when, once threshed, it enters granary bins like a flood of tiny seed-pearls. It is beautiful when cooked by a practiced hand, pure white and sweetly fragrant. Shizuo Tsuji

Breakfast for Health.

Today, February 26th …

John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor (along with his brother Will) of flaked breakfast cereal, was born on this day in 1852. He was a man of unshakeable beliefs: meat was bad, alcohol was bad, sex was bad (he spent his honeymoon writing a treatise on Hygiene); water was good (lots by mouth, more by enema), yoghurt was good (half the daily allowance by mouth, the other half to follow the path of the water enema), and nuts were so good they would “save the race” (the white race that is).

It has to be said, however misguided his ideas seem to most of us today he worked tirelessly to try to avert what he saw as the path to hell and poor health that humans had taken. He started the Race Betterment Foundation and ran conferences to promote segregation. He started the Battle Creek Sanitorium. He invented cornflakes.

There are two versions attributed to John Kellogg of how the flaked cereal invention came to be: in one he says it was in response to an incident when an elderly female patient broke her false teeth on the zwieback she had been prescribed, the other that it came about when he lived in a small room with no suitable facilities for preparing the cooked grain that was the usual breakfast for those not having the usual meat and eggs of the day. Whatever the explanation, and in spite of the irreconcilable differences it created between John and Will, the invention has made their name famous.

The cornflakes were never intended to replace boiled cereals. Cereals in one form or another were essential in treating what Kellogg saw as the two major ‘problems’ that explained almost all human misery, personal or global. They were ‘the solitary vice’ (which is way outside the scope of this blog) and constipation. In 1919 in his book called the Autointoxication of Intestinal Toxemia, he explained it all:

…. intestinal stasis is the fundamental and widespread cause of a large share of the chronic maladies that afflict the people in civilised lands …

… including, it seems, insanity. He quoted a specialist in mental diseases:

“Who has not seen a prodigious evacuation of the bowels at the hands of the physician terminate a case of insanity…? … constipation is only a link in the series of causes and consequences arising from the disturbed abdominal viscera, and on the mental side encourages and accentuates such symptoms as apathy, irritability, perverted moral feelings, melancholia, mania – nay, suicide ….”

If there was any doubt about the efficiency or otherwise of the bowels, this could be investigated by ‘The Intestinal Test Diet’ in conjunction with the administration of carmine capsules, followed by ‘a careful study of the stools’.

For a man six feet in height weighing 180 to 200 pounds … Breakfast: one and one half pints of milk, two ounces zwieback, one pint of oatmeal porridge made with one and one third ounces of dry meal, ten grams of butter and one egg. Dinner: one ounce pure gluten biscuit, one ounce of butter, potato soup prepared with six and one third ounces of potatoes, three and one third ounces of milk. One third of the ounce of butter may be added to the potato soup. Supper: the same as breakfast.

To assist anyone wishing to prescribe or follow this regime who might need some tuition on the subject, he gave 8 ½ pages on the examination of the stool (which presumably included counting the capsules, although I confess I couldn’t read that far).

The book included a recipe for an anti-toxic food:

A Simple and Excellent Breakfast Food.
An excellent breakfast food for the antitoxic ration, which is much to be preferred as an anti-toxic food to the breakfast foods in common use is the following:
Mix together equal parts by measure of corn meal, steel-cut oats, and sterilized bran. Stir this mixture into boiling water in sufficient amount to make a rather thin porridge. As soon as the mixture thickens, or not more than five minutes after beginning to stir the meal, the porridge should be removed from the stove and is ready to serve at once. The preparation is not only far more wholesome than the long cooked cereals, but is more palatable than oatmeal and other preparations served in the usual way.


Tomorrow’s Story …

Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast


On this Topic

John Kellogg and his wife Ella featured in another story which included a sample of the ‘Large Number of Original, Palatable, and Wholesome Recipes’ from her book ‘Science in the Kitchen …’

Quotation for the Day …

"Some breakfast food manufacturer hit upon the simple notion of emptying out the leavings of carthorse nose bags, adding a few other things like unconsumed portions of chicken layer's mash, and the sweepings of racing stables, packing the mixture in little bags and selling them in health food shops." Frank Muir, British writer and broadcaster