Breakfast, for sure, is the most important meal of the day.

Nowadays, the “Full Irish Breakfast”, which shocked me the first time I came to Ireland as a holidaymaker, is eaten only as a weekend treat or as a Sunday “brunch” (a combination of breakfast and lunch).

Although Irish people love to go out for brunch and wolf down their highly nutritious traditional breakfast, they have, for their everyday breakfast, anything from cereals, slices of buttered toast with jam and a cup of tea to delicious and healthy porridge.

Porridge is a simple and nutritious dish made with oat flakes, water or milk and a pinch of salt.

It is becoming very popular thanks to the status of oats as healthy food, and I picked it as my daily breakfast, here in Ireland.

I discovered that already before AD 1500 arable land provided oats and barley, which were the everyday cereals of the vast majority of the population. Oats were consumed in form of bread, porridge, gruel and meal pastes.

And so we can say porridge, in the past also called stirabout, is one of the oldest Irish foods and people used to eat their porridge either for breakfast or for supper.

It was made not just from oatmeal but from wheat or barley and cooked with milk, buttermilk or water and flavoured with salt, butter, honey or sugar.

Even the 7th century Brehon Laws, which governed everyday life in Early Medieval Ireland, gave rules about the kind of porridge fostered children could have, depending on their classes.

Children of the ruling class received their porridge made of wheaten meal, upon new milk, taken with honey and fresh cream, while children of inferior grades had their porridge made of oatmeal on buttermilk or water taken with old butter.

Nowadays there are many ways to eat porridge, with honey, cream, sugar, brown sugar or stewed fruit such as apples, rhubarb or berries.

Here is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

• 40 g oat flakes
• 375 ml cold water or milk
• A pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS

1. In a saucepan put the oat flakes and liquid
2. Stir and bring to boiling point.
3. Simmer for 6 minutes stirring all the time.
4. Add salt near the end.
5. Serve hot according to your taste

I like mine served with fresh fruit, brown sugar and a splash of cream!

And remember as an old Irish Proverb says:

“Let broth boil slowly, but let porridge make a noise.”