JUST PORRIDGE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 108, 24 May 1937, Page 6

JUST PORRIDGE

Porridge and marmalade are the two great breakfast dishes Scotland has given to the world. F. Marian McNeill, in the course of a sturdy defenee of porridge in the Scotsman, says : u An eminent Scottish dietician has come forward to champion the cftuse of the dish on which countless generations of Scotemen have been reared, and has deciared at a gathering of women in Stirling that oatmeal porridge and milk constitute ' an almoSt perfect foodstuff ' ! So it's up with out porridge-stieks, if ever we were misguided enough to down them! Dietetics js a young science, if, indeed, it is strictly a science at all, and dieticians do not seem to be more immune from fads and fancies than other members of the community ; but good sense as well as patriotism is all in favour of porridge. "In Hislop's ' Book of Scottish Anecdote ' there is a story of an eminent Glasgow professor, who eneountered on a country road a small boy, whose face was glowing with • health and happiness. ' Well, my lad,' said the professor, ' what is it I wonder that gives you those rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes? What do you take for breakfast?' ' Just porridge, sir,' replied the hoy with a hright smile. ' Apd what for dinner?' asked the professor. 'Just porridge, sir.' 'Porridge again? Really! What then do you take for supper ? ' 'Just porridge, sir.' 'Dear me! You dou't mean to tell me you eat nothing but porridge?' The small boy burst out laughing, and called out to another small boy who hove in sight, ' Hi, Jamie, here's a gentleman that thinks every day's New Year's Day!' There's a lot of wisdom in Brillat-Savarin's famous axiom that the fate of nations depends" upon how they are fed," the writer concluded. " Let our Scottish housewives lceep that iu lnind ! An4 tius u well; the hand that stirs the porridge rules the world!"