Love in a bowl
The stolid, solid pleasure of oatmeal
I eat oatmeal for breakfast almost every day. I say this not to lord my great health choices over you, you protein shake guzzler or bacon nibbler, but because I keep noticing how much I love it. I notice and notice and notice.
Oatmeal for breakfast makes me feel sane. Simple, reliable, easy, at home or abroad. Oatmeal and little bananas for breakfast saw me through the challenges of eating in India. Packets of oatmeal tucked away in my suitcase bolstered our mood in England when our little party couldn’t find an open take-away or restaurant of any kind at the tail end of the pandemic. At 4:30 in the morning at my hotel before a flight this week, I took comfort in the ritual of a bowl of oatmeal from room service. It made the lines and security checks and waiting for a delayed flight ever so much more bearable.
Some form of grainy porridge exists in many cultures, and if it isn’t native, they’ve adopted something. In Southern Europe, I’ve feasted on soupy polenta instead of oats. There’s Chinese congee, and Russian kasha (which I quite like), made with buckwheat. Archeologists have found burned porridge in 5000-year-old stoneware.
I hated oatmeal as a child. It was dull and soupy and gray, and I just did not understand why my mother forced us to eat it. Turns out she cooked it like porridge, and I still don’t like that. To my taste, oatmeal should be old-fashioned oats, cooked in water that’s been salted solidly, and served with defined whole grains still visible in the bowl.
My husband and I eat it every morning. He likes his plain, with milk. I jazz mine up with some kind of fruit, dates or apples or more likely fresh berries, butter, a sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg; sugar or syrup. No milk, please.
Every morning, day after day after day, year after year. Comforting, homey, satisfying.
When I was in Wyoming recently with my granddaughters, I cooked oatmeal for them almost every morning. The youngest is not at all a morning person, stumbling into the light without any language for a half hour, but a bowl of oatmeal with strawberries and a poultry sausage on the side can clear the path. Her sister, a lark like me (and both of her parents) devours a big hearty bowl and likes a cup of tea with milk and sugar, and she will start talking the minute she sits down. I hope they carry that sense of well-being with them into their grown-up lives, will hold close the idea that a warm breakfast to start the day can make all manner of things if not better, easier.
I made hot breakfasts for my children, too, every morning until they declined to participate in their teens. It struck me as I sliced strawberries for the girls to wonder why. Why am I such a fiend for hot breakfast? Because, let’s get real, a lot of people would rather just be left to their toast and coffee or a bowl of Shredded Wheat. And there I am, music playing something a little upbeat but not too intrusive—gentle Celtic or happy classical or some world beats that feel calm and optimistic—stirring and chopping and rinsing.
Why? The memory that popped up was first grade, when my mother had a job for awhile. She gathered up the other children and took them to my grandmother’s house. While my dad slept upstairs (he worked the night shift), I was charged with getting to school by myself. I watched Captain Kangaroo to know when to leave, because I couldn’t yet tell time, and I don’t feel any sense of fear about the fact that I was trusted to do these tasks myself. (One morning, I got confused over which commercial we were on and I hurried to school, only to find the rooms empty. I waited outside for what seemed like a couple of years for other people to come.)1
I don’t feel sad about that little girl, but if a memory shows up like that, I have learned to trust it. I must have felt anxious about getting it right, so now I make a hot breakfast for anyone who will sit still long enough, feeding and nourishing the little girl I was.
How about you? Are you an oatmeal fan? Breakfast or not?
For the record, it was not uncommon for children to do all kinds of things on their own in my world, in that time. I walked to and from school by myself, crossing two major avenues, and I managed just fine. There were crosswalks and lights, and I obeyed the signals. My worst moment was when I took the way home across the creek, which was STRICTLY not allowed, and to my horror, saw a deer head lying in the water. Of course I couldn’t tell anyone because I had gone the wrong way home, so lived with those dead eyes staring at me for ages.
I was young in the early 80s and pretty much left to my own devices. I spent summers from dawn to dusk playing near a rather *dangerous* river. I walked a mile to school and back and would often stay late to play on the playground which was firmly cemented in concrete! I had a neighbor who was in his 80's, a wood turner. I'd sit in the piles of sweet wood shavings, eating a bowl of ice cream he'd supply, and listen to his soft shaky voice tell me stories of when he was young and there was no electricity or indoor plumbing or cars. Was I a bit neglected? Maybe. But it was a good childhood. I too love oatmeal. My favorite is putting fresh cranberries into the water as it boils. They make a delightful pop as they warm up. It's a gentle start to a winter day.
Oh, yes... I love oatmeal, as does my son. He often brings to my attention a new type of oats I should try. His sisters liked the instant stuff when they were teens. My favorite oatmeal story, however, is from my job as one who planned and ran investor conferences back in the 1990s. I would set up breakfast and lunch for sophisticated New York money managers, trying to keep them well fed, and in their chairs for the entire conference. Imagine my surprise the first time I branched out the breakfast offerings to a large pot of serve-yourself oatmeal, with various toppings, only to have the entire pot disappear, leaving behind the fruit and pastries! Several of the sophisticated businessmen thanked me for the oatmeal option.