At my house we call oatmeal “porridge.” True, it is the same gluey, colorless stuff as oatmeal, but somehow it seems tastier if it is assigned this rather British moniker. Instead of scooping a blob of goop out of the pot that still has most of its wooden handle, and hearing that blob land with a squdging sound in the cereal bowl with the chipped edge . . . . and instead of splashing in some milk that will never mix in properly until the entire dish is too cold to bother with . . . . and instead of looking about for a bit of sugar and finding only the canister of white crystals left over from Christmas baking efforts . . . . instead of that sort of oatmeal-related disappointment, porridge arrives with a certain proud sense of itself. This can be dangerous.
Porridge, once let in the door, threatens to run away with its own self-image, flaunt itself, and make fun of ordinary domestic life. Porridge may insist on arriving at the table in a bowl festooned with images of rose blooms and forget-me-nots. Porridge demands the milk be heated and served in a small porcelain pitcher with a gold band around the top. The sugar is not to be lowly brown sugar, but demerara sugar that twinkles as you shake it onto the porridge from the monogrammed silver spoon.
Of course, if you welcome this transformation of oatmeal into porridge, you will need to hire a butler. His name is Winchester, and he will deliver your porridge to you on a tray. Okay, let’s just admit it is a silver tray.. Also on that tray will be a small cut-glass bowl of wild strawberries gathered from the woods behind the stables. You will find coffee that gurgles gently from a silver-domed coffee pot. Perhaps best of all, there is a single pink rose in a bud vase in the upper left corner of the tray. The blossom was picked just as the sun rose over the conservatory and still carries three sparkling drops of dew on it petals. This is how porridge takes over a breakfast table.
I am pleased to report that I have succeeded in keeping the porridge at my house under control. I do this by using Quaker Quick Oats (never the instant variety) and cooking it for two minutes in the ticking microwave. Sometimes in a fit of pique, the bowl boils over and makes a terrible mess. I say “Dammit! You are acting like a bowl of oatmeal!” And I shove a bagel into the toaster.
So you have been warned. Beware of humble foodstuffs putting on airs! All the same, I will continue to contend that a bowl of porridge is a much more pleasant way to start the day that a bowl of oatmeal could ever be.
