Originally Posted by
CrossChain
I say, olde chappes, for years, actually, some social classes of English/Irish existed on a diet perhaps predominantly oatmeal. The "oaken walls" of England's fleet that maintained the Empire would have been better labeled "oatmeal" walls...though perhaps not literally structured so.
IOW, I am also a fan of morning oatmeal. I refuse to call it porridge or gruel.
Gruel was given in the workhouses and was water with some thing in it- Normally boiled water with a rotten cabbage leaf and Horse bran. Now porridge is fantastic. and I am of an age when I can remember it being boiled for hours--Before the Quick oats came about. Oatmeal is generraly the name put in the additive to cakes and biscuits so if you are making your "Porridge" out of Oatmeal- Then I do pity you. Now the ones I do pity are those that prefer the "Instant" porridge where you pour on water and eat.
Unfortunately- I once went to stay with a Scottish family out on the islands. They made Porridge the traditional scottish way and that included growing the oats in the first place. It was disgusting. And if I could have spoken Gaelic, which was the family's native tongue- I would have let them know.