Salt or sugar, sweet or savoury, porridge is stirring stuff. Porridge is called oatmeal in the USA and Canada. In England we have porridge for breakfast with sugar, but in Scotland they eat porridge with salt. Maybe this is something to do with a previous century when sugar was imported from sugar cane in the caribbean and shipped to ports on the west coast of England and sent down to London.
Supermarket Choices
Porridge is still a favourite breakfast served in hotels in winter in the UK. Nowadays most supermarkets in London, England, and elsewhere in the UK can offer porridge oats in large bags at a low price. You can also buy ready-made porridge in one person portions in a sachet for the microwave, with sugar and milk included, just empty into a bowl, using the sachet as instructed to measure the exact amount of added water. (I add fresh milk either as part of the liquid during cooking or afterwards to the bowl when serving and eating.)
Online UK supermarkets which have pictures and prices of porridge include Asda, Tesco, Ocado (home delivery branch). You will see pictures of brands such as Jordans, Oat So Simple.
Checking the various flavours, you could pick the one with lowest calories. Lucky you if you are not counting calories. All my favourites were the highest calories.
I was impressed by the huge variety offered even in a small branch of Tesco supermarket.
A big bag of Tesco's own is competitively priced.
Quaker Oats. Only £1.14 for a big bag from a small branch of Tesco. A little goes a long way because they swell up when you add water.
You could start with a bowl of fresh fruit, chopped up with a few nuts (if you are not allergic to nuts), plus milk. Then have porridge.
A traditional hotel breakfast would offer porridge as a starter, followed by fried eggs or other eggs and bacon and sausage, possibly cooked/fried tomato and mushroom. All very calorific and ideal for warming you and marching along the valley by the rivers (now flooding!) on the breezy hillsides, through the dark pine forests, though the cold winter weather to work or school or working out in the cold fields on a farm. Oats are starches, which are a form of slow-release calories which keep you going all morning or all day, as opposed to quick-energy foods such as sugar which stimulates you with a burst of energy and then a sinking low later.
Diet versus Cholesterol
We gave up porridge with sugar when we started a diet. Then we read that if you have high cholesterol porridge seems to - in simple terms - to attach to the baddies and carry them off.
Stirring
If you have a saucepan with a see-though glass lid you can see what is happening. Today we were looking at stirring porridge. If you make porridge the old fashioned way in a saucepan, somebody stirs the porridge to stop it sticking. When you stir, you help the oats mix their starch into the water forming a 'cream'.
With too little water you would end up with a sticky clump like a cake. Too much water and you would start with a clear soup with bits in it. To solve the problem, simply add more oats or more water. If you buy a pack of oats it often tells you how much water and how many spoons or cups or the weight, but you can tell by eye. If you make porridge every morning, you get into a system, half of a particular saucepan or bowl.
Why would you cook in a saucepan and stir, rather than tipping into a bowl and using the microwave? For one person, you might prefer a microwave, less washing up and you are a microwave person who wants results in one minute, so you buy a sachet.
If you are a dedicated cook, you reckon it's hardly any work to add water to oats in a saucepan and stir until it is exactly right.
Another advantage of stirring is that it doesn't overcook and get burnt and stick to the bottom of the inside of the pan. (If so, if you are lucky you can eat the top half. If the nasty burned flavour is all through, you will have to start again with another pan. Simply soak pan in water for an hour or so. Frankly, it's dangerous. You could start a fire. Burned food gives you cancer, according to the cancer research websites. Easier to stand and watch. If you need to answer the phone, keep a mobile within reach, check who is calling, or watch the food as you answer and tell the people briefly you are cooking and will phone back.)
Self-Stirring Saucepans
Years ago, as a newlywed, (back in the 1970s) I invested in a pan with a stirring device in the lid. I quickly tired of this. It had two disadvantages. The first was that it made an irritating whirring noise. The second was that it was complicated to clean. I'm not sure if it went in the dishwasher. Probably not, because it had batteries in the lid.
Finally it had batteries which needed replacing. That was a cost. A nuisance to change batteries. You thought it had broken but the batteries had run out. A general nuisance. Or you forgot and started cooking in another saucepan which was nearby and caught your eye. The stirring device got in the way if you wanted to use the pan for anything else.
However, looking on the internet in early 2016, we found the Japanese had invented new devices. One is a shaped saucepan, somewhat like a V shape, art deco appearance, which creates a vortex. One is a dedicated saucepan. Another is a device you can move from one saucepan to another. Some have patterned interiors. All very scientific, domestic science.
UK Stir Pan Prices and pan Stirrer
Amazon has a stirring saucepan at about £12. Tesco has a sale on and their lowest price is just under £10. You can order online, click and collect from your nearest branch of Tesco. A member of my family just ordered one.
Looking at the specifications again, I see that what we ordered is not a saucepan but a device which sits in any saucepan (of the specified range of sizes). It is driven by batteries. Batteries are not supplied. It takes rechargeable batteries. That's good. You save money. You are less likely to run out of power.
I am looking forward to using it. Our main use initially will be for the daily porridge. But it will be useful for other sauces. I wonder whether it will affect consistency? We don't have lumpy porridge. I doubt whether the porridge will taste any different.
Regarding taste, we have tried cutting down sugar to nothing, but the porridge is very bland. If you add just a tiny amount of sugar and a tiny amount of salt, that suits us. We a have sometimes forgotten to add salt and had to add a little at the table.
Asian Savoury porridge
In Asia they eat porridge for breakfast in Singapore. Also in hotels in Asia. In restaurants and fast food shops. And in lounges at airports such as Singapore Airlines, especially in the Asian countries, so you will see it in a lounge on a stopover from Australia to Europe via Singapore. If you are in Star Alliance and stop at a country with no Singapore Airlines lounge, you may find yourself directed to another airline's lounge.
In Asia or on a flight with many Asians you are likely to find you are offered p or r i d g e (good thing I re-read my post - predictive text turned the word into horrible!), nearly always savoury, often with meat or fish or vegetables mixed in. If you treat porridge like potato or pasta or bread, it is just a bland vehicle to which you can add anything you like for a one pot breakfast when travelling or in a hotel suite or at a second home, or arriving in your new rented or bought home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porridge
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, author, speaker.
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