After a few heavy blogs, I decided to wade into a controversial topic: Oatmeal. I am team oatmeal. I love oatmeal. Oatmeal pancakes, oatmeal muffins. A bowl of steel cut oats cooked in an InstaPot. Oatmeal cookies. Oatmeal with fried eggs, chard, and onion. Oatmeal with leftover meat and veg. Fried leftover oatmeal with maple syrup. Some people don’t like oatmeal. They call it “library paste,” or say it feels “slimy.” My theory is that your attitude towards oatmeal is directly tied to early experiences. If you had a gelatinous bowl of lukewarm oatmeal thrust in front of you with little added to counteract its inherent blandness, you probably hate it now. If, like me, your Mom would make oatmeal on cold winter mornings and serve it steaming hot, sometimes plump with juicy raisins and cinnamon, and always with a pat of butter, brown sugar, and cream, it’s highly likely you love oatmeal.
If you’re a dietician or cardiologist, you recommend oatmeal for its’ health benefits. Influencers love oatmeal because you can take pretty photos of your overnight oats and feel all healthy and virtuous. If you’re a weirdo like Katie, you like it dry, right out of the packet. If you’re Scottish, you could discuss the differences between pinhead and rolled, which is better for scurley or whether it’s authentic unless it’s stirred with a spurtle. I’m sure the Irish could chime in here, but they already have potatoes.
The history of oats and Scotland (and to a lesser extent, Ireland and England) is quite fascinating. Romans brought oats to Scotland to feed their horses about 2,000 years ago. The oats that were carelessly thrown aside thrived in the rainy climate, long summer days, and acidic soil. Soon, the Scots were cooking oats in water and using them as a dietary staple. Over the years, someone created the spurtle. It’s a wooden paddle that has changed and been refined over time to look like the set of spurtles below.
The Scots, being Scots, actually have a world championship for porridge, the Annual Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship. Yes, I giggled like a thirteen-year-old boy at “golden spurtle.” <sigh> I really wish Robin Williams was alive so he could riff on this like he does golf (link to 1.44 minutes of a brilliant bit. Watch it!)
I remember when I was eleven or twelve, Mom allowed me to stay up with her on Sunday nights to watch Masterpiece Theater. I felt very grown up, and the first series we watched together was “Cold Comfort Farm.” If you are not familiar, it’s based on a book that parodied books that romanticized England’s rural life. It featured the Starkadder family and the matriarch, Aunt Ada Doom. The kitchen is what I remember best; a dark, damp-looking room with a giant, crusty iron kettle of constantly bubbling porridge. Her sons, all louts, clomped in wearing filthy clothes and muddy boots, and shoveled it into their mouths while Aunt Ada rocked and said, “I saw something nasty in the woodshed.” The way she slopped that oatmeal into bowls remains with me today.
Oatmeal has always been on the menu in my house, but it has moved up dramatically since I quit eating gluten. I eat it for breakfast at least four times a week. I do not use a spurtle, and I usually microwave it in a bowl. The other times I cook them I use an InstaPot or put it in the oven overnight. My favorite way to make the base for all sweet oatmeal is a slug of Silk Oatmeal Creamer Vanilla, oats, any kind, water, and a pinch of salt. After that, what I add depends on what I have around. Flax seeds, chia seeds, blueberries, strawberries, bananas, mango, collagen, and toasted, shredded coconut all get thrown in. Oddly, I’m not much of a fan of the overnight oats so beloved by the influencer crowd; it takes on a mucilaginous quality that isn’t appetizing to me.
Dad doesn’t care for oatmeal. I consider this a small defect, like his hatred of mayonnaise and mashed potatoes. Rocky doesn’t like them, either. He’s not a normal dog. Potato chips and cheese will stay on the floor until I sweep them up, but any vegetable gets scarfed down. I dedicate this blog to all the Scottish people I know, basically this means the Lawson clan (and they are a clan, there’s like a zillion of them all around Winston-Salem, NC), especially Dot Lawson. I’d love to hear her explain spurtles and scurley in Scottish. I wouldn’t understand much of it, but it’s a beautiful noise.
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