On a cold winter's day, there's nothing quite as satisfying as a hot bowl of oatmeal. Dressed with a slab of butter, some raisins and maybe -- if you're Scottish -- a wee dram of whiskey, oatmeal is a food with character, history and depth. Sink your spoon into a bowl of oatmeal and you lift up memories.
Oats are one of the earliest cereals cultivated by man, grown in ancient China as long ago as 7,000 B.C. But it was the ancient Greeks, several thousand years later, who made the first recorded porridge from oats. But no one seems to have recorded what the younger Greeks thought of the invention.
Simmered slowly in a pot for at least a half hour, an honest batch of cooked oats has a pleasant taste, velvety aroma and a grainy texture that a mouth can linger over. Here is a meal of substance.
Most folks top their oatmeal with milk, sugar and fruit, but others claim to prefer theirs with eggnog, peanut butter, cottage cheese, and even brewer's yeast. And the Scots, of course, add that wee dram of whiskey. But the Scots also eat haggis, which colors their opinion.
During the Civil War, a German immigrant in Ohio by the name of Ferdinand Schumacher got a contract to sell oatmeal to the Union army. He was sort of the Halliburton of his time. The gruel he provided was no more popular with the troops than it is with schoolkids today, but it was easy to prepare, filling and inexpensive -- an ideal food for an army on the move. And, as recent research demonstrates, oatmeal is rich in soluble fiber and releases its energy into the body slowly. Unlike a more rapidly-absorbed meal which can leave you feeling tired soon after eating, a bowl of oatmeal provides energy for the body longer into the day's march.
Was Schumacher's oatmeal a factor in the Union's victory? You betcha. Was the Confederacy lost, in part, for lack of a good stick-to-your-ribs breakfast? Of course it was.
Believe it or not, the German Mills American Oatmeal Company eventually won over the Union troops and newspapers dubbed Schumacher the "Oatmeal King." This was the foundation of what eventually became Quaker Oats, the company that put the Quaker Man on its box and defeated its competitors with Babe Ruth's game-winning advertisements.
Thanks to Quaker Oats, most Americans believe there are just three kinds of oatmeal: Old Fashioned, Quick, and Instant.
Old Fashioned Oats are "groats" -- oats with their hulls removed -- that are steamed and rolled but not cut. They cook in 5 minutes on the stove-top or about 3 minutes in a microwave oven and can be used for baking.
Quick Oats are groats that are cut into two or three pieces, then steamed and rolled. They cook in just 1 minute on the stove-top or microwave oven and can also be used for baking.
Instant Oatmeal is a lie. First, you have to open two packages -- the outer box and then an individually wrapped packet. Then you have to heat water or milk and mix the liquid and oatmeal powder together. If it was truly Instant Oatmeal, it would be sitting on the store shelf in a bowl, mixed, hot, and sweetened just right with a spoon ready on the side.
There are a lot more varieties of oatmeal, of course, just as there are languages besides English, Spanish and French, but they may be hard to find at the local grocer. Steel Cut Oatmeal (Scottish Oatmeal), for instance, is cut with large knives into small grains and cooked more slowly than other oatmeals, producing a rich and nutty flavor that makes the stuff that pours from the other boxes seem like processed silt... but it also requires that wee dram of whiskey.
Whatever variety you choose, oatmeal is a wonderful food. Besides Viagra, it's just about the only product that the Food and Drug Administration agrees is good for a body. It reduces cholesterol in the bloodstream, fills the belly, and moves rather quickly through the digestive system, giving added meaning to the phrase "feeling his oats."