SC - Breakfast

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LYN M PARKINSON wrote:
> 
> I would guess they were handed a dried, salted fish, like a smoked
> kipper.  The kippers may have been cooked, and piled on a huge platter
> for people pick up.  The pottage would have been served in a bowl, I
> think, and the overnight cooking was most likely the way.  If they
> bothered to spice, or sweeten it for farm workers, it was probably done
> early, as the pottage was brought up to hot on a fresh fire.

Good heavens! Spices or sweeteners in perfectly good porridge?

FWIW, just as an interesting bit of culture shock, there are wildly
OT-OOP (19th century) accounts of those pesky English travellers in the
Scottish Highlands, which describe families seated around a single large
bowl of porridge, with each diner issued his/her own horn spoon, with a
cup of skimmed milk for dunking spoonfuls of porridge.

This, by the way, is also the traditional way to eat paella (platter in
the middle of the table, each diner eating off a central plate), and I
wouldn't be at all surprised to find the practice is much older than the
19th century.

Adamantius
Østgardr, East
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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