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The Great Porridge Debate
The British / American English comments are incorrect. It's not a British/American difference. Most people in both countries use the word oatmeal to refer to rolled oats, crushed oats, porridge, etc. in daily life, recipe books, paint shops and so on. So the stuff about dialect differences doesn't stand up to scrutiny. This isn't a dialect difference.
The difference is more that between a technical term and a non-technical term. Just as people use the word "Hoover" when they mean "any kind of vacuum cleaner", they use the word "oatmeal" when they mean "any kind of oats". And that's true whether you live in Boston, Lincolnshire or London, Ontario. -- Derek Ross
- No it's not a just technical term. I have several different brands and kinds of "oatmeal" labeled oatmeal in my cupboard right now and none of them are "oat flour" or what you call oatmeal. The article has to discuss what this stuff really is. Perhaps it is not a British/American difference but that is the only conclusion I could draw from the article you wrote which did not discuss anything I would call oatmeal. Rmhermen 17:41 Apr 11, 2003 (UTC)
- I doubt if very many people in Boston call a vacuum cleaner a Hoover. ASAIK, that's a Britishism. -- Zoe
- You doubt if many people in Boston, Lincolnshire call a vacuum cleaner a Hoover. Well, you may be right, I've never been there so I don't know for sure. -- Derek Ross
- I thought the posting above was discussing three different places, not two. -- Zoe
- "Discuss what it really is". Well, it's a type of meal, like cornmeal, wheatmeal, or peasemeal. The meal part means that it's the ground product of a mill and, indeed, all these products are ground, some coarsely, some finely. That's what I described in the original article. I'm well aware that the majority of people use the term loosely to refer to porridge but if you take a look at the articles which link to oatmeal you'll find that they are mostly referring to classic ground oatmeal. -- Derek Ross
- The more you say the more I think it is a Briish/American defference. What in the world is wheatmeal? Who has ever seen peasemeal outside of a nursery rhyme? Cornmeal is corn that hasn't been ground fine enough to be corn flour. Just as oatmeal is a product not fine enough to be called oat flour, which flour is only rarely found in supermarkets - usually only health food stores, so it is certainly not something a American recipe usually calls for. Classic ground oatmeal doesn't mean to me what it means to you. I think you mean oat flour. And the porridge entry was just wrong because porridge isn't only ever made from oats. It can be made from any meal - it's just usually oats. Rmhermen 14:54 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)
- I agree with what you say about porridge being made from any kind of meal. The article should be changed to say that. I also agree with what you say about the difference between cornmeal and cornflour but I would go on to say that this is exactly the difference between oatmeal and oat flour or wheatmeal and wheat flour. I can't recall seeing oat flour in British supermarkets either. As you say it's not something that a recipe, American or otherwise, usually calls for. Generally all that you see in English supermarkets is rolled oats (Scott's or Quaker's) for making porridge. In Scottish supermarkets you will get oatmeal as I have described it as well as Quaker's oats, but I've never seen oat flour for sale.
- Wheatmeal is mostly used by bakery companies to produce biscuits, cookies or crackers (the British digestive biscuit, the American Graham cracker or the Australian wheatmeal biscuit for instance). Retail consumers would find it more difficult to lay their hands on it.
- Peasemeal is only of historical interest nowadays, I suppose, but while pease porridge may not be too popular anymore, hummus is easy enough to buy and it's much the same thing but made with olive oil. Pea flour in the form of soya flour is a bit easier to find although, like oat flour, you might well have to go to a health food outlet for it.
- Changing the subject slightly what brands and kinds of oatmeal do you have in your cupboard ? I'm curious about the difference between Scottish oatmeal and US oatmeal. -- Derek Ross 05:55 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC)
- I see we agree now that oat flour is not oatmeal. Actually one of the products I have in my cupboard is Scottish oatmeal, or at least an American product billing itself as such. It is stone ground and highly variable in particle size, probably unsifted. I also have Quaker Rolled Oats and probably Quaker Quick Oats which give on the back a recipe for making "oatmeal". And Quaker Instant Oatmeal. As far as I can tell, Rolled oats are just smashed at the mill, Quick Oats are cut then smashed, Instant Oatmeal is cut, smashed and partially pre-cooked. There is also steel-cut oats which I think is the same as Irish oatmeal but how this differs from Scottish oatmeal I don't know. As a side, does anyone actually use the word porridge outside of fairy tales? Rmhermen 13:55 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)
- Sometimes my wife and I use the word porridge to refer to oatmeal (generic version of Quaker Oats) when talking to our kids, mainly to increase its appeal based on the fairy tale connection. :-) Wesley 14:03 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)
- Well, since we Scots use the word oatmeal to refer to the dry coarsely ground oats which we use to make poultry stuffing, skirlie, cranachan, oatcakes, porridge, etc., it means that we need another word to refer to oatmeal made into a breakfast dish, so we still call that porridge. I must admit that I wouldn't normally connect it with fairy tales any more than I would connect beans with fairy tales, although I can think of fairy tales that mention porridge (and beans). Still, anything to get the little ones to eat up, eh! Thinking about it further, not all breakfast porridge in Britain is made of oatmeal. The Weetabix product is very popular but it makes a wheat porridge rather than an oatmeal one. -- Derek Ross 04:09 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)
what do we call oat or oatmeal in india
actually i saw a Ronnie Coleman's(a recent body builber n mr.universe 2005) video where he is being shown eating oatmeal.. but actually i reside in india so can somebody give me an indian name of oat n oatmeal either in hindi, oriya , bengali or punjabi!.. plz here is my email add too where u can mail my queries plzz dearest.raman@gmail.com
Alan Greenspan
"U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, likes his oatmeal with raisins in it." - I don't see why mentioning a famous person who likes oatmeal is non-encyclopedic. I think it makes the article more interesting. I happen to like oatmeal with raisins and I found it interesting when I learned about someone else who did also. H2O 13:51, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Why don't you try contributing say a section on the various flavorings and garnishes used in oatmeal. (raisins don't appear so far in the article) Rmhermen 14:08, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, raisins do appear in the article. If you look closely under each of the two pictures, the captions mention raisins being in oatmeal. The flavorings belong in an article about Quaker Oats, since anything else would be POV. 68.38.242.66 21:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
More on the Great Porridge Debate
Actually, Rolled Oats are first steamed, then flattened. To add to the discussion of distinctions, what I gathered from some Internet research and the available products in my city (Montreal) we have the following:
- Oats is the cereal
- I have found in nature store whole grains of oats being called "oats almonds" (I should double-check, though). I tried cooking them to make porridge but to no use. I suppose they are for soup, like barley.
- Oatmeal is the catch-all term for processed, cookable oats to be used in porridge, stuffings, cookies, etc.
- Of which we have four categories:
- Steel-cut oats, or Irish oats, which present the biggest grains. Pieces are about the third of the size of a whole grain, and their size is calibrated.
- Stone-ground oats, or Scottish oats: I have been able to find it only once: it fits the description above of various-sized grains, uncalibrated, and of irregular shapes. I'm having it for breakfast today! The "Scottish Oatmeal" I bought comes from the USA, mind you.
- Rolled oats, the most commonly found variety, in which the raw grains are steamed, then rolled. If the grain was whole at the moment of processing, they are called "Old-fashioned", and take longer to cook (but more tasty). If the grain was broken somehow, then they are just generic "rolled oats" or sometimes just "oatmeal".
- Instant oatmeal: is actually pre-cooked when bought, unlike all the preceding varieties. Oats is cooked, flavored, then cooled down, dried, and processed into flakes.
If you put the terms in order of + abstract to - abstract, we have something like this:
- Oats -> Oatmeal -> Porridge
And you will notice that the terms at the end of the series, can often be referred to be the terms earlier in the series: people having porridge will also say that they are having oatmeal, etc. I cannot say anything about oat flour, as I've never encountered it, but in French, Rolled Oats are commonly referred to as such: "Farine d'avoine" (oat flour), by older people. For instance, my steel box of John McCann's "Irish Oatmeal"--a product of Ireland, from County Kildare [see their website)--bears alongside it on the bilingual label (thanks law 101!) "Farine d'Avoine Irlandaise", i.e. "oats flour". In French, we use the term "gruau" for the dish of cooked oats (usually rolled, as it's hard to find the other kinds), but when our moms ask us to go out to buy some oats stuff to make cookies, they would also ask us to buy "gruau". Because the words "gruau" (the equivalent of "porridge"), "flocons d'avoine" and "farine d'avoine", which should be respectively: the meal, the product to cook the meal, and the ingredient in cooking/pastry, have all the same referent in Quebec (Quaker's stuff in a box), their meaning is collapsing, so that we use one term for the other. (sorry, I haven't made a wikipedia account yet!) 65.93.226.253 16:35, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) <--- Michel Hardy 04:28, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I think that when you say "their meaning is collapsing", you have hit the nail on the head.
If you want to make porridge with whole oat grains, you will need to soak them for a day beforehand and then boil them for a very long time. That's why porridge is generally made from rolled oats or from oatmeal: it's easier to deal with.
I'm afraid that I would only call your first two categories "oatmeal". The last two are respectively rolled oats and pre-cooked porridge to my mind but I am glad to hear that you had "proper" oatmeal for breakfast. The flavour is definitely better. Another thing that you might want to try is to fry your stone-ground "Scottish" oatmeal with onions and some oil. This is called "skirlie" and is an extremely tasty dish.
I agree with your diagram
- Oats -> Oatmeal -> Porridge
but would add
- Wheat -> Wheatmeal -> Porridge
- Peas -> Peasemeal -> Porridge
as well.
As for the difference between Irish and Scottish oatmeal, this seems to be a marketing difference to me. In Scotland some oatmeal is stone ground and some is steel ground but the result is pretty similar. In both cases the machinery can be set to create big pieces (coarse), medium pieces (pinhead), or tiny pieces (fine ground). I would imagine that the same is true in Ireland.
In Britain we differentiate between porridge and gruel. Gruel is normally thinner and may be made with vegetable or animal stock rather than plain water but is otherwise the same thing. -- Derek Ross | Talk 01:46, 2004 Oct 27 (UTC)
- Yes, I think adding the wheat and pea varieties are meanigful as well. I wasn't actually aware that the "Scottish" oats was not really a category; when I buy "scottish" oat cookies (Nairn's), they are made from coarsly ground grains, so I was under the assumption that this had something to do with regional origins. Actually, on the related issue of cookies, when I went to Cape Breton this summer (in Nova Scotia), I noticed that most bakeries make oat(meal) cookies, although usually from rolled oats (another result of the Quakerisation of North America). I'd be curious to find out how to make them from stone-ground or steel-cut oats, as I gather it will give them a richer flavour. Michel Hardy 04:28, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Nairn's in Scotland make quite a wide variety of oatcakes. They sell oatcakes made both from coarse oatmeal and from fine oatmeal as well as organic oatcakes, cheese oatcakes and other variations. However in Calgary, I've only seen their organic and rough (coarse) oatcakes. Perhaps it's the same story in Montreal. It's a far cry from Scotland where there is a huge variety of oatcakes and every local baker seems to have their own special recipe, some fine, some coarse, but at least Nairn's make quite a decent oatcake so things could be worse. I do miss Stockan & Garden's Thick Orkney Oatcakes though. These are a triangular fine ground oatcake with a particularly excellent flavour and I will certainly be bringing them back from my next visit to Arbroath, whenever that is. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:27, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)
what do we call oat or oatmeal in india
actually i saw a Ronnie Coleman's(a recent body builber n mr.universe 2005) video where he is being shown eating oatmeal.. but actually i reside in india so can somebody give me an indian name of oat n oatmeal either in hindi, oriya , bengali or punjabi!.. plz here is my email add too where u can mail my queries plzz dearest.raman@gmail.com
Oatmeal is what the most popular brand in a country says it is
To Americans and Canadians and those countries where America has bases (especially Asia), "oatmeal" is overwhelmingly best represented by the Quaker brand. It is even the representative picture in this article, defining for us what oatmeal is.
If you travel around the world, and not just confine yourself to Europe or America or wherever, you'll realize that a brand name can penetrate so pervasively and completely that the proper name of the thing itself is derived not from the original English word but rather from the name of the most famous brand that represents it. For example, "bleach" is called "lax" because it is a short way of saying "Chlorox" ("---rox" = "lax"). Instant coffee cream is referred to as "prim" because that's the name of the most successful brand.
Likewise, for North Americans, "oatmeal" is what the Quaker company says it is, which in my tin is crushed dried whole grain oats with a whitish color. Just add water and wait a few minutes and you're good to go. Porridge? Maybe, but only if the tin says so. I'd have to check to be sure, but what I know the tin to say for sure is "oatmeal".
Another example of brand penetration is "Jello" in North America. Yes, some of us may want to refer to it as "gelatin", but many people call any brand of instant desert gelatin "jello" without even giving it a second thought.
I have no idea if Quaker is even sold in Europe, but if they think "oatmeal" means something else, now you know why. -- (Someone who didn't bother to sign)
- I haven't a clue what Europeans think "oatmeal" means in fact I don't think many of them eat it. But Quaker is certainly the main seller of instant porridge in Scotland. It's probably the most popular brand under either their "Quaker" or their "Scotts" brands too. Yet Scotsmen still know the difference between oatmeal and porridge. Why don't North Americans get it ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 14:38, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
- If Quaker sells the same material as "oatmeal" in North America and as "porridge" in Scotland or the UK, then obviously this means it's just a case of "I say potato, you say po-tah-to". Europeans use "corn" to refer to wheat but wheat is just wheat in North America, and corn is the just the big yellow thing with the cob...all of that means the two sides do indeed use grain-related words differently, so it's pointless to argue who is "right" or not. Unless you want to put it to a democratic vote, in which case the North American definitions of 300,000,000 people win out, plus the Asian countries where America has bases. If that isn't a satisfactory solution, then the differences just have to be respected. --Atrahasis 12:21, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
If you're going to start this silly "we've got more English speakers than you have" nonsense, please refer to the petrol/gasoline debate where it has already been hashed out in much greater detail than I ever want to cover... -- Derek Ross | Talk 14:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
- Excuse me, but if you read carefully the gist of my words is that people use the words differently and that these differences should be respected. It's the exact opposite of trying to argue which is more "correct" which is what other people seem to be doing. --Atrahasis 14:51, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Except that nobody calls oatmeal "Quaker", as in "I had Quaker for breakfast", so this is a false analogy. People are debating over what oatmeal is, not confusing or interchanging it with a brand name. Compare to "I wiped my nose with a Kleenex" or "I made some Xeroxes" for real examples of brand name pervasiveness.
Small Question
Is it true that eating Oatmeal increases the Male Sex Drive? --Arima 06:15, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
- Sure, if it is smeared on a woman's breasts. 24.6.99.30 11:02, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I live in Ireland and near enough to the Flahavans Oats Plant, which is the biggest maker of Porridge in the country. I'll see if I can get one of the Flahavans to contribute to this debate. If anyone knows their oats, it'll be them!
The Preparation of Porridge
Although oatmeal porridge is traditionally prepared with water, it appears to have become common practice in my experience for it to be prepared with milk. Milk arguably offers advantages in: nutrition; flavour; and texture.
I propose the creation of a separate section on various preparation techniques.
Health Benefits
It would be nice for this article to address the claims made recently by Quaker Oats that eating oatmeal for 30 days reduces the amount of cholesterol in the body. The article could perhaps mention this claim and what studies this claim is based on. On this talk page, perhaps a nutritionist could also provide his/her opinion on the validity of these claims? 72.241.13.128 20:47, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Possible Merger
As I don't want to resurrect the porridge debate above, but I think the bulk of this page belongs in the Porridge article. Obviously the American use of "oatmeal" to mean a breakfast cereal (even when it's made from whole oats, not from meal) is identical to the English word "porridge". So the Breakfast Cereal and Vermont sections obviously should be mereged there.
In the Scottish section there's really only a few points about the grades of oatmeal coarseness and its uses, which could easily be incorporated into Oat. (That recipe certainly doesn't belong here!) I'll leave open the question of whether Oatmeal should redirect there of if there's sufficent information on the different coarsenesses and uses of oat-meal to justify leaving a page here.
Nick 16:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose. This page is about oatmeal. That page is about porridge. They are not about the same thing. Porridge does not mean oatmeal nor must it be made from oats - or even from a grain. Remeber pease porridge? Rmhermen 02:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
what do we call oat or oatmeal in india
actually i saw a Ronnie Coleman's(a recent body builber n mr.universe 2005) video where he is being shown eating oatmeal.. but actually i reside in india so can somebody give me an indian name of oat n oatmeal either in hindi, oriya , bengali or punjabi!.. plz here is my email add too where u can mail my queries plzz dearest.raman@gmail.com