h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In the US we have a functionally similar hot breakfast dish called oatmeal, which is made with water, usually. There are regular oatmeal (cooks in 5 minutes!), quick oats (cooks in one minute!), and instant oatmeal (made with hot water at tea temperature; cooks in the bowl!) Any of these are good with raisins, apple slices, or maple syrup (add fruit to the boiling water at the same time as the oats for best results)I have had porridge and think that it is qualitatively better than oatmeal; Your guide entry has made me hungry enough to want to start making it myself instead of US-style oatmeal.

Three weeks ago I submitted a guide entry called "Porridge" and then changed it to "Oatflakes not Porridge" and still got no replies. Today I spot an editors recommendation of the same title but no references to my own thoughts on the subject so I've copied them from the guide entry to paste as a reply to yours. Nothing personal you understand but does anybody know why we ever cooked oats when it makes them harder to digest? Here follows the guide entry:-

Oat Flakes - Not Porridge!

Not the popular UK comedy serial with Ronnie Barker but the stuff you might have for breakfast. Before the days of fancy processed grain derivitive breakfast cereals, porridge was the first choice on the breakfast menu for thousands, probably millions of people on cold wintery mornings. About half a cup of oat flakes were boiled in milk or water until sticky enough to use as wallpaper paste. Some would then add sugar, treacle, golden syrup or follow the Scottish tradition of adding a generous teaspoonful of salt to it!

However prepared I always found this unpalatable and my mouth would slowly grind to a halt under the sticky goo that is porridge.

One day it occured to me that the popular muesli healthy breakfast cereal was a mix of grains including oats and that none had been cooked much if at all. I then tried a mix of oat flakes and milk without the need to cook them to a glue or have a pan to clean afterwards. They were fine if a little dull but did not stick my mouth together or lay heavy on the stomach afterwards. Adding a level teaspoonful of brown sugar and a sliced banana or a sliced apple with cinnamon or a sliced peach adds one healthy portion of the days fruit quota and you end up with a breakfast meal that is healthy, easy to swallow and, here comes the surprise bonus, is actually easier to digest. To my surprise I found one reference book tells the reader that oat flakes or rolled oats are easier to digest when eaten raw than when cooked so why did we ever cook it in the first place? Could it just be the comforting feel of hot food on cold days but we'll let the guide decide!

For the record I use organic oats just in case ordinary oats have pesticide or herbicide residue on them.

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I humbly suggest that the reason for eating hot oat flakes is the consistency. Boiling the oat flakes, as we all know, adds water to them and creates a smooth pudding-like texture. Question: if you pour milk on them, do they get good and soggy?