Porridge

I’ve read loads of books recently that I should really have written about, and, even in the cooking department, I’ve made loads of complex and delicious things of far higher brow than porridge. But I love porridge so I’m going to write about it.

Porridge is the best breakfast. There are many people who will tell me that I am wrong and that cocoa pops are better. They have a point, they are good and sugary, and they do have the benefit of chocolate. They’re wrong though. Some people say that a full fried breakfast is superior, and they have a better point (I will never understand the Vegetarian cooked breakfast which is missing the vital parts of Black Pudding (without which it’s not a real breakfast), bacon and sausage). Despite the delicious fattiness, they’ve also missed the mark though.

Porridge is amazing. It’s simple enough that you can cook it without having had any caffeine yet, it’s incredibly satisfying, and the packet I made it from says it’s a superfood, so it’s a least pretending to be healthy.

Many people will say I make porridge wrong, but they don’t understand. Porridge isn’t a high-brow recipe, made to outdo other people. Porridge is made because it’s genuinely nice. As porridge in out house had to feed both vegan and non-vegan breakfasters, porridge is made with water in the pan, and then has milk added to it once it’s been portioned out in the bowl, creating the brilliant effect of an incredibly wobbly pale brown island perilously placed in an opaque white sea. After this one can add sugar, but this is for the boring and sad at heart. Really you want to add a teaspoon of jam, a small red pond in the middle of the island. The jam should be as lumpy as possible. Smooth jam adds flavour, but it’s that brilliant texture that really makes porridge for me.

Once the milk has warmed up a little bit, you vigorously mix the jam into the porridge. If you’ve got thick enough jam, and thick enough porridge this makes an amazing red, white and brown streaking effect throughout the dish. Now you’re ready. It’s time to eat porridge.

It’s fantastic. Porridge by itself is lovely, but really it’s all about that fantastic moment when you break through into a seam, a giant preserved strawberry, filled with sugar on the end of your spoon and the blissful carbohydrate soup is brought to dazzling shining life. The huge burst of sugar is the ideal thing, an energy-filled beacon on a freezing morning, waking you up and sending you on your way to whatever it is you need to do on a wonderful sugar high.

It’s one of the things that really reminds me of being a child I think, and something that’s never really lost it’s wonder. I’m not sure if anyone else who ate it would get it. It’s sufficiently delicious and so perfectly suited to the early morning stupor that I refuse to believe that anyone would fail to get some small joy from it.

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