What is gruel?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
April 19, 2004
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Oats (Avena sativa and A. nuda) became a popular crop throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. Oats were easy to cultivate. In 1597, John Gerard mentioned that "Common Otes...is used in many countries to make sundry sorts of bread...Jannocks, Haver cakes, Tharsse cakes...which are called generally Oten cakes..."
With a somewhat sanctimonious air, Gerard wrote "Avena nuda...these naked Otes immediately as they be threshed, without helpe of a Mill become Otemeale fit for our use....Some of those good house-wives that delight not to have anything but from hand to mouth...may (whiles their pot doth seeth) go to the barne,
and rub forth with their hands sufficient for that present time, not willing to provide for to morrow...." The upper class considered oats as food for horses and the 'not willing to provide for tomorrow' lower class. (The Herbal, 1633 edition)
Oats became the basic meal served in the public workhouses—gruel*. In 1837, Charles Dickens sarcastically wrote "...that all poor people should have the alternative of being starved by a gradual process in the [work] house, or by a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with the water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water, and with a corn-factory (grain processor) to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal, and issued three meals of thin gruel a day...." (Oliver Twist, Chapter 2)
Although the rich would never consider eating oats, they did use the grain for pain relief. Gerard described the early heating pad. "Common Otes put into a linnen bag, with a little bay salt quilted handsomely for the same purpose, and made hot in a frying pan, and applied very hot, easeth the paine in the side call the stitch, or collicke in the belly (abdominal cramps).
*Gruel was a porridge made of grain and water. The usual grain was crushed or rolled oats. It was not what we think of today as oatmeal with milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, and the like. Gruel was more along the line of a quarter cup of rolled oats to 5 or 6 cups of water and that very well may have been the meal for several children in a workhouse for orphans.
killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~
Suggested Reading:
Oats, past and present Plants that Changed History - March 23, 2004
Why were amaranths forbidden? Plants that Changed History - January 11, 2005
What is an animated oat? Weird Plants - April 8, 2004
What is a wheat berry? Weird Plants - October 9, 2003
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