Save your breath to cool your porridge.
Lately I have introduced a new food to my healthy menu-a
food I have religiously avoided in spite of it’s high recommendations by health
gurus-you know, those knowledgeable interfering experts who keep on about the
dangers of your favourite foods and recommending unappetizing ones such as the bountiful “oatmeal porridge.” I have hated
this dish ever since I was a child and really felt no reason to alter my
opinion as an adult but I realized, being a mature woman of a certain age, I
needed to include it in my diet. My path
of learning to cook this in an edible, appetizing way without it turning into
lumps, cement or runny messes is fraught with frustration and much failure and
I won’t bore you with it. I have solved
the problem of making it palatable by the simple solution of adding a dab of
butter and a dollop of cream. Watching the butter and cream melting into the
steaming hot porridge satisfies me sensually and I now enjoy eating this dish.
The interesting offshoot of all this is that while watching the butter disappear
and merge with the cream, I was vividly
reminded of the same sensation while eating porridge in my childhood- being a farm child with a lot of
memories and culinary experiences with
these two dairy products. The other thing that triggered my memory were the
long hours I reluctantly spent churning butter and watching my mother mold and
wrap the pounds of butter which she sold. My mother, an early feminist entrepreneur,
supported and fed her large family by selling cream, butter and eggs- any grain
farming profits being churned back into the farm. I also remembered the rare
occasions when I was allowed to accompany my mother to town where she sold
these products to Mr. Klein at his store in exchange for supplies. These were
for me excruciatingly embarrassing and I cringed as I listened to my mother in imperfect
English barter with Mr. Klein. “Mrs. F” he would argue “I know you have the
best butter in the county but I can’t pay more” and my mother with her “No” [my
mother’s “no” was very vigorous as I knew from experience] would barter with
great strength. At last these two antagonists would come to an agreement and my
mother would leave with her purchases muttering under her breath how “typically
cheap he was” much to my judgmental discomfort and I was sure he was thinking
the same-“typical hard-nosed farmer.” It was only recently I realized these two had great respect for each other-
understood good quality and each others' haggling expertise very well and enjoyed the whole experience-a sort
of nostalgic trip for each to their
native country and the time honoured business of bartering. So you see dear readers, because I did this
great stretch in introducing this undesirable food experience to my life, I
inadvertently came to a new insight. I would advise you to do the same. You
never know where a big adventurous culinary “stretch” will take you. Never
limit your life to new adventures and see what insights you will experience,
just as it did me with this long blog about porridge. I love the expression “Save your breath to
cool your porridge” and was pleased to finally find a way to use it.
