Praise of Porridge
It is with some uncertainty that I observe that the Yankee republic has wrestled the Golden Spurtle trophy from Scotland. [Link] A spurtle is a baton that looks rather like a constable’s truncheon that has been on a diet and is commonly used as a stirring rod in the preparation of oatmeal.[1]
The uncertainty arises here in that oatmeal, and its derivative haggis, are quintessentially Scots and hence the denuding of the national honor and self confidence in this manner, even by a nation that used to have a sizable fraction of Scots descent, especially here in Nawth Alibam, is telling. The Sassenach English will likely take back the stone and engineers will no longer studiously acquire brogue accents (or shoes.)
I also find some degree of uncertainty that the token was taken by an employee of one of those Pacific Northwest morally superior Birkenstock wearing environmentally conscious corporations.[2] There seems something depressing as well as disillusioning that a corporate organization could be responsible for the best of any experience. What a horrible example to set for General Motors, General Electric, and the present incumbent of the Oval Office. Does this mean that the citizen-consumer can now actually hold large organizations accountable for quality as well as quantity?
We here in the Yankee republic tend to think of oatmeal as something that comes in paper packets and is exploded in a microwave oven. It is, of course, not eaten here in the Old Confederacy as a matter of patriotic fervor for grits, and hence any restaurant one asks for the former is honor bound to prepare in as unpalatable a fashion as possible. It is permissible to prepare cookies (biscuits as the Sassenach would perversely miscall them) from oatmeal, but one is not patriotic is one eats oatmeal instead of grits. It is permissible however to adulterate the grits with any additive one chooses so long as that additive is not oatmeal.
On the rest of Tellus, oatmeal is neither instant nor something made in a microwave. Rather it is an exacting and lengthy – hours – long process involving precision stirring and attention, two things alien to Amerikan nature and society. I once knew a fellow who made an adequate Amerikan substitute from a slow cooker modified with an electric motor attached to a rare earths magnet that coupled magnetically to one of those plastic coated bovine magnets that did the actual stirring. He, unsurprisingly, was a native of Maine.
I am a poor excuse of a Southron in that I consume both oatmeal and hash brown potatoes in preference, nay, to the exclusion of, grits. During my graduate shul days at the campus of the Boneyard, existing on a Teaching Assistant’s stipend, my morning fast was broken daily by a reconstituted packet of cosmetically damaged instant oatmeal. Microwave ovens were unavailable in those days so I had to actually boil water on the stove, which is probably why the stuff was palatable. And returning to work after heart attack, a morning bowl of instant oatmeal made by a Sassenach corporate organization, was sufficient to keep me alive through a morning of raucous subordinates and termagant superiors. After retirement however, my oatmeal consumption was severely curtailed by FD SCP whose overpowered microwave was certain (probability exactly one) to explosively boil the water and oats mixture and require a rigorous cleaning of the cooking compartment of the oven. Happily I could fall back on the production and consumption of cookies.
I suppose I could cultivate the skill of producing traditional oatmeal except for the stirring thing. I am not much for such repetitive activities (hence the heart attack,) and I doubt FD SCP would let me modify a crock pot. But a research trip to Scotland? It could be combined with an investigation of distilleries! Is there ought better than oatmeal and whisky, with a wee dram of Maple syrup for the former?
[1] Spurtles may be procured in the Yankee republic from the Lee Valley Tool Company [Link] and likely other places and corporate organizations I am unaware of.
[2] Not MegaHard, of course, since their tree hugging is limited to processed trees imprinted in green ink with the portraits of dead presidents (and the occasional political appointee, but all dead and Western European in ancestry.)
