Do I...Like Oatmeal Now?

And no, this isn't an April Fool's joke

Here’s the deal: oatmeal is inherently unexciting. It is most often an uninspired color, an uninviting texture, and an unappealing option when propped up against…I don’t know…literally anything else you might choose to eat for breakfast. For one thing, whenever I tried to like it, it didn’t taste good unless I put heaps of brown sugar in it, in which case why was I even eating oatmeal instead of, like, a cookie? Secondly, it had this awful effect of making me feel uncomfortably full before suddenly leaving me ravenous again. I think this probably has more to do with my insulin resistance and eating what I refer to as “unanchored carbs” than an inherent fault in the food itself, but I didn’t care enough at the time to puzzle it out. Even the name puts one in mind of the medieval peasantry: oatmeal: a mealy meal of oats. Might as well call a slice of afternoon toast “breadmeal,” and coffee “caffeinemeal.” Let Rae Dunn haphazardly label your nutrition schedule with a Sharpie. But I am a nonsensical person at times, so there was always a tiny wedge of my cozy-loving heart that wanted to like porridge.

Jan Brett knows a thing or two about porridge.

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Look, I know “porridge” is nothing but a cottage-core rebrand for a food that has stood people in good stead for centuries, but I can’t help it. If the term “oatmeal” is the TJ Maxx clearance section, “porridge” drops me smack into a Jan Brett picture book. I am Goldilocks. I am wearing a smocked empire-waist dress. My hair smells like strawberries and cream. I am plundering the house of a family of brown bears. I fall asleep in a perfectly squidgy bed. You get the idea.

This is all highly researched and very certainly true: as far as I can see, there’s a continuum of splodgy foods. As with most spectrums you get some extreme examples on either end and plenty of opinion in the middle. For instance, on the delicious end (to me) you have shrimp and grits, or a perfect asparagus risotto. On the disgusting end you have the sort of rice cereal babies eat. Or gruel. Where does porridge fit in?

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I’ve been porridge-curious for a couple of years now. I kept seeing it on menus, kept seeing people making it without fanfare on social media as if it’s something they actually eat and enjoy. There seemed to be a faction of people that actually sought out and pursued oatmeal. And I liked a lot of things that were porridge-adjacent, didn’t I? A lot of squishy, spoonable, oddly-comforting sludges along the continuum. So I tried to ease into it. I made oatmeal with blueberries simmered inside, but this was clumpy and turned grey from the blueberry juice. I tried cooking oats with some milk and a generous wave of heavy cream, but this curdled. Then I tried overnight fridge oats. They tasted like something I was not meant to be eating raw, as if I’d run out of time and gone in for the batter of a baked oatmeal. And speaking of, I made baked oatmeal too. It was delicious, but rather more like a cake. Anyway, something you have to prepare well ahead of time (and something that makes such a big amount and uses a so many ingredients) seemed to defeat the purpose of everything I wanted to like about oatmeal: it’s quick! it’s economical! it can be scaled up or down according to your hunger! you don’t really have to measure!

I should tell you that the porridge I had in mind was a subdued version of a berry crisp. Yes, yes, I know that berry crisp is a dessert and not a breakfast, but I’ve confused my appetite by eating leftover berry crisp as breakfast a couple times on many occasions. I wanted that moreish, golden, creamy, oat-streusel-y flavor with pockets of tart, gleaming fruit. I had never met this in porridge form, but it had to be achievable, right? I pressed on with little success and lots of failed breakfasts till Courtney Adamo shared something about her family’s porridge-habit on Instagram. She walked through their process for making it and though the finer points elude me, it set me off on a the right path. A couple happy accidents later, a little trial and error and…well…I’m a porridge girly now.

If you are also oatmeal-/porridge-curious, here is how I’m eating mine!

Begin with berries. Dump a whole glut of berries into a saucepan. I like to make a big batch at one go if I plan to have porridge several mornings. Frozen berries are cheap and well-suited for this, or you can use past-prime berries from your fridge. The variety doesn’t matter. (My latest batch was a frozen Aldi bag of “mixed fruit” which contained two types of cherries, blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries.)Into the berries squeeze the juice of one lemon - this will keep the flavor bright. Add a small glug of maple syrup or honey. I measure this with my heart, but it might be a tablespoon. Cook over medium heat till soft and jammy and lightly reduced. We do like the juice though, so don’t worry about reducing too far. Set this aside. If I have fruit prepared in the fridge, I don’t even bother to warm it up, as the porridge from the next step will do the job.

For the porridge itself, begin with milk. I use whole milk because of its protein content, creaminess, and flavor, but you can use whatever you’d like. If using full-fat coconut milk you might think about thinning it with water. About a cup of milk - less if you’re less hungry. Next, add rolled oats - half as much as the milk. Add a heaping tablespoon of chia seeds for fun and games. A small drizzle of honey - a teaspoon is plenty, maybe less. A tiny pinch of sea salt and an equally tiny pinch of cinnamon. Bring this to a gentle simmer and stir a few minutes till it is cooked. The chia seeds and oats together make a lovely texture that reminds me a little of a really good rice pudding. A little creamier than oats alone, and much less stodgy.

Now comes the exciting part! Choose a low and wide dish to plate on. I cannot stress this enough. Low and wide. Do not go for a cereal bowl. The shape of the dish matters when it comes to maximum enjoyment. Defy me if you wish, but don’t say I didn’t offer sound advice. Some people make claims about the type of spoon on which you have to eat caviar and I’ve always rolled my eyes (though if you can afford to eat caviar I’m sure you can afford the perfect utensils for it) but I guess I believe it after all this. So: into your low, wide dish pour the creamy oats and spread them about 1” thick or thinner. Spoon the jammy fruit overtop, making sure there is a nice ratio of fruit to oats. If it helps, imagine an inverse ratio of berry crisp: more oats than berries, but only by a 60/40 ratio or so. Let the juice pool around the oats. This is a delight eaten as-is but you can do a few things here: lately I’ve been dolloping searingly tart passionfruit curd on top. I often add yogurt for further protein, or a scattering of chopped nuts. Sometimes I do a ribbon of almond butter instead. Sometimes, if you’re feeling indulgent, it’s nice to put whipped cream on top. And if you ever see me trying to add a cheeky little scoop of vanilla ice cream…we’ll have come full circle to a berry crisp a la mode. Oh - brain wave - just put a container of Cabot’s triple cream vanilla bean Greek yogurt on your next shopping list. Ice cream masquerading as Greek yogurt. Surely we were born at a merry hour.

low-effort photo of a great breakfast

Listen, I hope one of you oatmeal haters comes to the delicious side of the soft, splodgy food continuum! This is going to sound petulant and is obviously a matter of opinion but…why is anyone content with gross food? Brussels sprouts are done dirty by being boiled, and oatmeal is done dirty by…well…quite a lot of things including being called “oatmeal” but also by being unimaginatively fixed for hoards of people who have since refused to eat it ever again. Maybe this will change your mind? Maybe it won’t. But if nothing else, I hope it shows you just what a porridge could be if it reached for its wildest, most elaborate dream.

Till Next Time,

Rachel