A dish once more important than bread, and in more recent decades a well-known Scottish substitute for central heating
Remnants of it have been found in the stomachs of 5,000-year-old bodies preserved in peat bogs in northern Europe. Scraps of it still adhere to the kitchen walls of 1930s semis, evidence of otherwise forgotten marital quarrels. There is still some of it, profoundly carbonised, at the bottom of your mother's best saucepan. We speak, of course, of porridge, a dish once more important than bread, and in more recent decades a well-known Scottish substitute for central heating. Its popularity had faded, but now it appears its time has come again. Pret a Manger, selling 50,000 bowls a week, is coasting to much-improved profits on the back of its porridge offerings. Porridge vans roam the streets of Edinburgh, while the Irish, too, are reporting increased consumption. Porridge is even enjoying a new vogue as a missile: a large lump of it was thrown at a football referee in Durban, South Africa, a week ago. Porridge is one of those dishes which, made well, can be ambrosial, as the French heroine of that wonderful film Babette's Feast proved when she transformed the grim sludge that the Danes call øllebrød, a kind of rye porridge, into a delightful morning treat. Her porridge began the process of spiritual renewal through good food which transformed the life of the remote Danish village to which she had been exiled. In another sign of change, Goldilocks was acquitted in a recent mock trial in Los Angeles, leaving the court without a stain on her character. Truly, the voice of the spurtle is heard in the land.