Oatmeal
In a recent post on Juke, Damon Falke shares his story about oatmeal. Thank you, Damon, for inspiring me to write this wee blurb. Oatmeal is, as you say, the grand old man of foods.
"It's gross and disgusting and I'm not cooking it any more." Thus spake Tracy, a neighbor from decades ago. At the time, I was shocked, but held my tongue. I realized that oatmeal is not haute cuisine and it's not everyone's favorite; but I enjoyed its nutty flavor and the chewy texture. Along with a dusting of cinnamon sugar Mom sprinkled on top, it was joy in the morning.
Years later, I lived with a woman whose oatmeal showed me what may have soured Tracy on this homely dish. Lee cooked a pot of oatmeal one morning, whipping it into a gray goo. She then served it to me without milk, honey, or any other garnishes. My heart died as I gazed at this inedible mess. Pushing it away, I grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl, and left for work. This roommate situation didn't last long for a lot of reasons, but the oatmeal incident started the process.
While Mom referred to any grain she cooked for breakfast as mush, she produced a luscious cereal whose flavor and texture became a reliable platform for all kinds of tasty toppings that sustained us through the morning. What's more, husband Jeff never turned up his nose at a humble bowl of oatmeal, no matter how I cooked it.
While I've succumbed to microwaving everything in recent years, most of the time, I stuck to Mom's method. Sometimes the way food is prepared becomes a part of the heritage as well as a family recipe.
First, she would bring a couple of cups of water to a rolling boil. Then she would slide the rolled oats into the water, shifting them around with a wooden spoon until they were completely submerged. To prevent boil-overs she lowered the heat, allowing the flakes to tumble gently. Occasionally, she would lift the lid long enough to move the cereal to prevent it from sticking to the pan.
The way she handled the oats was key to creating a hearty texture rather than a slimy glop. After the oatmeal soaked up the water, she turned off the heat to let it coast for a while, becoming a bit drier and more supple.
A sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon and a splash of milk completed this breakfast and held me until lunch. She never whipped, folded, spindled, or mutilated oatmeal. Her mush always went down as a treat rather than a torment.
The five minute rolled oats can be cooked to a texture that rolls around your tongue as if it had something important to give. Watch out for slivers in steel-cut oatmeal, though. That can ruin your day.
When the quick or minute oatmeal came along, cooking time and attention waned considerably. It didn't require the soothing touch as it was already reduced to crumbs. Just dump it into boiling water and turn off the heat. This product used up all the broken pieces left by the steel-cut process at the plant to prevent waste. It also made an easy hot cereal for camp-outs as it could be cooked with the hot water you would heat for coffee or tea. Just soak it like those little packets of oatmeal Mom's pack for their kids' daycare breakfasts.
After Jeff and I merged our childhood food fetishes, he slapped a pat of butter on top. Of course, a little fat makes everything taste better, right? With oatmeal especially, a little butter doesn't put all that much fat on the ribcage. It's the trips to the vending machines at work that get credit for that.
In recent years, wear and tear on my joints coaxed me to rely on the microwave … a lot. Standing over the stove just didn't work for me anymore. This included oatmeal. I put a half-cup of quick oats into each bowl, cover it with milk and nuke each bowl separately for about a minute or so. If it isn't quite done, I nuke it a tad longer. Then I open up the smorgasbord of condiments. I still love a liberal shake of cinnamon and Jeff prefers honey and blueberries on his. "Just like the picture on the box," he said. When he harvested six pints of honey from his first beehive, the microwave oatmeal rose to Nirvana.
It's all in the presentation!
We're not quite at the stage of haute cuisine oatmeal with all the nuts and seeds, etc. as displayed on social media. At OH-dark-hundred, my ambition isn't even alive yet.
A couple of weeks ago, we were nuking something and heard a disheartening POP! Fzzzzzzz! "Oh, that didn't sound happy," Jeff said as he sniffed the aroma of ozone wafting from the microwave.
So, I dived deep into my mental Rolodex and reverted back to stovetop cooking. Our replacement microwave was supposed to arrive in mid-February, but so far no encouraging phone call from the vendor. And who knows if we can have it installed immediately after it reaches the store. Oh well. At least I still know how to place a pan on the stove and gently move the oatmeal around until it attains that splendiferous consistency I love.
Postscript: did you know you can nuke Grape-Nuts in milk?