It's a Gruel World!

Photo © Rob Jones

Vikings were no strangers to fine dining, it would seem.

I guess that places like the world renowned Noma in Denmark, famed for their use of foraged ingredients, are the inheritors of a very long-standing tradition.

During my trips to Prague, I was introduced to a way of making breakfast porridge which I love to this day - literally. It’s a blue sky, Spring day in the Welsh hills. A tasty breakfast and a coffee basking in the warm sunshine, tempered by a cooling breeze.

It came about because I decided to make some porridge for myself, and my host looked on in horror.

‘Is that all you do?’ was his only remark. And yes… oats cooked in milk, served with a little jam is ‘All I do.’

So then came a quick, ‘this is how we like to do it’ lesson.

Namely:

Fry a cup of oats in butter. Before they burn throw in a handful of chopped nuts and raisins. Just as it all begins to smell toasty, add the milk and allow it to be absorbed and cook the oats. Add some cream into the mix. Serve with yet more cream, some grated apple and a blob of marmalade. Heaven.

Anyhow… back to the Vikings.

I stumbled across a slew of Viking recipes - yes they do exist, everything exists online - and discovered that this is more or less the way the Vikings made their breakfast. Who new?

Viking Gruel included Barley along with half a dozen pears, cooked in water and milk, sweetened with honey.

Most of the recipes involved a lot of fruit - apples or pears.

A recipe for Bread and Beer Soup caught my eye, but that’s for another day.

Dickens gave Gruel a bad name in this country, but justifiably. In Victorian times it was simple 3 dessert spoonfuls of oatmeal, boiled in a pint of water, with a pinch of salt.

Let’s hear it for the Vikings….

RJ