Oatmeal: How Do You Make Yours?

[Bugbear]

That sounds very nice, Pleater.

[Pleater]

I might just have to make some oatcakes - it is the weather for it, cold, dreary and grey.Standing by a hot griddle watching things cooking is no bad place to be on such a day. I can't remember who told me about the practise, it might have been my dad, but a weeks supply of oats used to be cooked in a large pan and then poured into a drawer of the kitchen cabinet. When they cooled the result was a solid slab, which was cut into cubes. The housewife and her family would know just how much one cube would make, and when needed one or more cubes would be put into milk or water, mashed up and heated. The first 'instant oats'. Over the years repeated cutting would mark the inside of the drawer with a series of grids, big for when there was a family in the house, and small for when the children were gone and it was just a couple of people to feed. Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Bugbear]

Reminds me of Rice Crispy cubes, Pleater. Don't know if you all have those over there in the UK.

[Tobus]

I can't remember who told me about the practise, it might have been my dad, but a weeks supply of oats used to be cooked in a large pan and then poured into a drawer of the kitchen cabinet. When they cooled the result was a solid slab, which was cut into cubes. The housewife and her family would know just how much one cube would make, and when needed one or more cubes would be put into milk or water, mashed up and heated.

By today's food safety standards, that would be truly disturbing. But what an amazing bit of family history! It's amazing how resourceful people tended to be.

Ah, thank goodness for Tupperware. Otherwise I'd be emptying out a kitchen drawer to try that method!

[Lallans]

In Eastern North America, there are accounts of how oatmeal used to be prepared for large groups using "hay cookers." Oatmeal and boiling water would be placed in large pots which in turn would be placed in wooden boxes and thickly insulated with hay, then left to cook over a period of hours. I've heard of this in connection with nighttime snowshoeing outings where an entire village would go on a snowshoe hike in the moonlight, have a bonfire and oatmeal warmup in a forest clearing or similar spot the cookers had been hauled to, and then everyone would snowshoe back home.

Simple pleasures are the best. It must have been nice.

[Bugbear]

Next winter, I'm considering growing an heirloom variety of wheat that some of the tribes out here have cultivated. It won't be a whole lot, but should be fun. Unfortunately, I am having to grow most everything in containers lately, but I should be able to produce a couple of handfuls.

By the way, Pleater, the purple mum flowers are blooming profusely right now; they're planted next to a rose bush, which is also blooming. For some reason I thought of you while looking at the mums...

[Pleater]

Very apt - on my wedding anniversery in November I got white chrysanthemums - meaning truth and loyal love. The flower in general means cheerfulness, optimism, joy, truth, rest and long life.The genus includes C. Parthenium, Feverfew - and is a member of the Compositae, like the dandelion.We have no flowers in bloom outside at the moment.Not even leaves on anything not frost adapted.My little grandson thought the snow on all the dead stems in the garden was flowers.Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Bugbear]

That's funny, Pleater.

I like mums, they do look happy.

[Kent Frazier]

Quaker Oats, cooked following package directions. Sweetened with agave nectar.

I may have to try some of the recipes posted here.

Kent

[Bugbear]

I happen to grow agaves. From time to time, I dig one up, chop off all the leaves, slice the heart into pieces, then roast them. Their good, though a bit fibrous.