Anyone who orders porridge in a chic breakfast restaurant today will hardly think that porridge is one of the oldest foods ever. The warm oatmeal is as popular as ever, highly praised for its digestible ingredients and its effects on energy and blood sugar levels.
Entering "porridge recipes" into Google results in millions of search results and opens up an infinite variety of porridge variants and preparation ideas .
Porridge – a food as old as mankind
The origin of the word "porridge" can be traced back, on the one hand, to the expression "pottage" as a modification of the French word "potage" – a term for soup – and, on the other hand, to the term "pot," i.e., the cooking pot.
Although the word "porridge" was only used from the 17th century, the practice of crushing cereals (such as oats, wheat, or corn) by chopping or grinding and boiling them in a pot with water or milk is much older.
The consumption of porridge-like dishes has accompanied the entire history of civilization. Scientists now assume that the cooking of grain-like grasses was practiced about 12,000 years ago and went hand in hand with humanity's evolution from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary farming one.
Consequently, the processing of cereals was not limited to the production of porridge; it also opened up the possibility of further thickening the cereal porridge and baking it as pellets or in brick form on hot stones or in the embers of the fire, thus making it durable and portable. This civilizational innovation – from porridge to bread – can be demonstrated almost simultaneously and on all continents.
The preparation of rice porridge has been documented in China for 4,500 years, while in other regions, such as South America, quinoa was consumed in the form of porridge more than 3,000 years ago. Porridge was also utilized in the Mediterranean and in Africa.
From “poor people” eating and stirring clockwise
Back to the modern porridge, which today is mainly equated with Scottish porridge. For climatic reasons alone, oats and barley were the predominant cereals in Scotland and played an important role as food. Strictly speaking, the Scottish porridge involves gently simmering oatmeal with constant stirring in water or milk, with the addition of a little butter and a final pinch of salt. The traditional Scottish porridge is now mainly enjoyed for breakfast as a creamy, warm dish, often sweetened with sugar or honey.
This was not always the case; in the 18th century, porridge was considered "poor people's food." Especially in rural areas, oats were a staple food, and the porridge produced from them was not only eaten hot but kept in a chilled form in wooden porridge shops. The oatmeal solidified during cooling and became thick and firm, allowing it to be eaten for several days – cut into slices, fried, or stirred back into porridge.
Surrounded by its significance as an essential food form, miraculous customs relate to the preparation of porridge. The right stirring technique is of great importance. A separate stirring tool, called a "spurtle," is still used for this purpose. This round rod, due to its slim surface, prevents the oatmeal from coming into contact with the stirring wood, thus preventing the porridge from clumping.
Since 1994, the annual World Porridge Making Championship has been held in the Scottish Highlands, where porridge chefs from around the world compete for the Golden Spurtle trophy. Incidentally, stirring clockwise and only with the right hand is believed to confer good fortune, while left-handed stirring counterclockwise is thought to bring bad luck.
The porridge variety of Verival
Be that as it may, nowadays more and more people find joy in a portion of porridge, whether stirred to the right or the left. This is particularly successful with the porridges from Verival, such as the popular Verival Strawberry-Chia Porridge or the new Verival Sport Porridge chocolate banana .
