Scotland,historic discovery – "The Porridge Drawer"

Having visited my old (*and knackered) crinklies, anyway during them telling me about their lifes I have discovered a new (to me anyway)Scotish ‘object’, the Porridge drawer, this really is true as witnessed by my mum (visiting midwife), dad (labourer), some farms used to make a weeks worth of porridge at a go and keep in it a drawer (to keep flies etc off), dad even used to work with a bloke whose ‘piece’ (*Scottish for sandwich) was a slice of porridge cut from the drawer.

It wasn’t just farmers. My Grand-dad was a miner and a slice of porridge out of the drawer was his regular “piece”. It was made a good bit thicker than the stuff you would have in a bowl so that it would hold together when wrapped in a bit of paper.

Yeo. My grandad told me he used to do this too.

Mind you his porridge was thick enough to stand a spoon in it even when it was freshly made.

“dressers in the Scottish Highlands may have a “porridge drawer” — a tin lined drawer into which freshly made porridge was emptied and left to cool. When cold, slices of the porridge could be cut out and taken out of the house for later consumption”

wikipedia on Welsh Dressers

Och, jings, the Broons comic strip used to do this up at their but ‘an ben. I used to imagine porridge studded with oose (another fine old Scottish word), old sixpences, dud batteries and bits of shoelace that you would typically find in an empty drawer.

Not just Scotland, my Irish mother’s family had a porage drawer. The same Irish grandmother would also put the teapot on the range and leave it stewing all day, drinking a cup every so often. She survived on that, bread and butter and a can of guinness a week, for nigh on ten years!

Aye- Paw Broon broke his falsh teesh on one of the twins’ toy cars.

*sighs* they were simpler, happier times then.

Never understood the old drawer job when you could just have brose.

i remember hearing a story about a Student who made a similar porridge in a big old school “trunk” and then proceeded to carve bits off for the whole of the term.

The story ended with him getting scurvy – sure it’s an urban myth though

Suddenly modern Scottish cooking doesn’t seem that unhealthy after all.

Nowadays it has been replaced with the modern equivalent, the giant deep fried potato drawer, with curry sauce and orange cheese.

Definition of oats: “A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland appears to support the people.”

Samuel Johnson: A Dictionary Of The English Language.

Of course, we now know that oats are amongst the most healthy grains available.

We used to go to a hotel in the highlands where they claimed to be good as they no longer used a porridge draw for guests but made to order .

And the scurvy catching student was in the year before my brother when he went to university and two years before me when I went to Polly 12 years latter .

It was a nightmare in my house as a kid as I was raised by my grandparents, who always argued about their porridge, gran was a Highlander and grandad was as she put it, A fat bald toothless pot bellied old English B*****d, needless to say he used sugar lol, and let’s not get started about the arguments on pancake day.

Sugar in porridge?!? Salt, if you’re lucky!

Was it deep fried first, or afterwards?

😉

Sugar,/salt, that’s why they argued, nettle brose is where it’s at anyway.

No it wasn’t deep fried but that’s the only thing that wasn’t, dripping fried porridge, what’s wrong with that anyway, lovely.

I remember that Broons story, Im quite curious to know what a slice of porridge would taste like?! Mine would probably have a phone charger in every bite!

Porridge in a bar? Nah, never catch on.