Porridge: again, so many things that you don’t know what this concept is.

Looking for a word which I believed that would be too simple, I realized that it have lots of associations. It’s the reason why this post is a bit long, but I assure you it’s worth reading it!! However, I’ll give you a clue...the most surprising thing is at the end! ;)

In Great Britain, Porridge is generally defined as a dish made by stirring oatmeal or rolled oats into boiling water or milk (or a mix of both), and simmering this mixture until it is cooked. It’s usually eaten hot and normally for breakfast, like CEREALS!

It has become an icon of Scottish cookery or at least, an icon of stated Scottish origin and nowadays, it’s a universal dish that cuts across many cultures and geographic boundaries. That's why it was hailed by Robert Burns (Scotland’s national poet) as “The halesome parritch, chief o’Scotia´s food”, even though oat is grown in many regions of the world.

The etymology of the word “porridge” has not been neatly worked out because its evolution has a large number of missing links, but it’s very much clear that “parritch”, “puree” and other variants are allied to the word “pottage”, indicating that ingredients are cooked together in a pot, and thickening with cereals (though the word “pottage” itself came to mean soup or broth.

All those concepts are linked by the Latin word “porrum”, that is, leek. It appeared in the Middle English word porree, a term used for leek porridge. It seems that there’s etymological evidence which points at porridge as a preparationmade from leeks and it finds its counterpart in the Spanish term “porra”, made by pounding the ingredients in a mortar until they form a thick pulp.

These two different dishes (the one which looks like cereals and the other, which is made from leaks) have something in common;

they’re thickened in some way. Both bread and a mix of vegetables

with meal or grits (including oats too) were a common solution for people who were lower on the economic ladder. Thickeners varied so much with time, appearing many “styles” of porridge but it is believed that it was stripped of all its vegetable ingredients, that is, of the main one too; leek.

Despite its literal definitions, oat is not a defining feature of its origin if we take into account an old children’s rhyme;

Pease Porridge hot,
Pease Porridge cold,

Pease Porridge in the Pot

Nine Days old.

Spell me that in four letters?

The earliest recorded version of “Pease Porridge Hot” is a riddle found in John Newbery’s Mother Goose’s Melody (1760), and here, the name refers to a type of porridge made from PEAS. “Pease” was treated as a mass noun, similar to “oatmeal” and the singular “pea” and plural “peas” arose by back-formation.

Depending on the country they’re called in a different way; United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada know this food by the name of porridge, but United States called it oatmeal or oatmeal mush, and so, some very distinct names.

At the same time, it’s a game too. Schoolchildren often play “Pease Porridge Hot” by pairing off and clapping their hands together. As you can appreciate, this game is also much known in Spain like “Las Palmitas”.

But, it doesn’t end here! The muesli of today is regarded as a health food and, it’s generally made with oats as its principal ingredient, with the addition of other cereal flakes, dried fruits and nuts. It requires no cooking and has grown more sophisticated over time, but it is still a recognized derivate of the Scottish porridge.

Finally a curious fact; It was a dish normally used to feed the inmates in British prisons, so, “doing porridge” became a synonymous for “serving sentence”!

Besides, this food has been found in the stomachs of Neolithic human bodies preserved in central Europe and Scandinavia, which means that is a very old food known long before we could imagine!

It’s a word from which you can get many knowledge and interesting things, although at first it can look like a really mess!

Hope you enyojed, and learn a little about it! =)