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From: rusty@sdcarl.UUCP (rusty c. wright)
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: oatmeal
Message-ID: <211@sdcarl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Jun-85 20:39:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcarl.211
Posted: Fri Jun 21 20:39:37 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Jun-85 03:37:26 EDT
Reply-To: rusty@sdcarl.UUCP (Rusty Wright)
Organization: Computer Audio Research Lab, UCSD, San Diego, Calif.
Lines: 33

The discussion about oatmeal (which i have thoroughly enjoyed)
reminds me of one of my most favorite books; {\it Square Meals}.
Their discussion of oatmeal is in the subsection "Notes on Cereal"
in the chapter "Nursery Food".  It's relatively short so i'll quote
it here:

Everyone eats cereal for breakfast; but only nursery food aficionados
know the joy of cereal after noon, the hapy-baby feeling of buttered
farina with raisins and cream at midnight. The very fact that you are
scooping your food with a large spoon from a bowl, rather than
performing the complex choreography of knife and fork, celebrates the
happy regression to uncarring, primitive life.

Of course, we are referring to hot cereal--oatmeal, Cream of Wheat,
Maltex, farina, Wheatena, even Maypo.  Cold cereal, especially weird
brands (in the world of nursery food, anything other than Wheaties
and Cheerios is weird), is simply not comforting food.  Cold cereal
is for grown-ups obsessed with regularity, a problem no prune-fed
nursery gourmet ever has to face.

Think of cereal as moist toast, and you will know all you need to
know to make it nuersery-perfect.  Just as with toast, the pleasure
of cereal eating comes from being able to make something warm and
friendly with so little effort.  In fact, all the good things for
topping toast are perfect also for cereal--plenty of butter, jam or
jelly, cinnamon-sugar, brown sugar, warm cream, plus lots of raisins.

Cereal is security, as close to baby food as adults can get without
stepping over the psychopathological line and actually eating
strained peas or drinking formula.
-- 
	rusty c. wright
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