[Sca-cooks] Buttered wortes/oatmeal

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 5:45 AM, Claire Clarke <angharad at adam.com.au> wrote:
> As a matter of curiosity, when Americans say 'oatmeal' do they mean
> porridge?

Yes.  And no.  We use both 'oatmeal' and 'oats' to refer to the
uncooked grain product, usually with an adjective to describe the
variety (ie., rolled oats, instant oatmeal, steel-cut oats, Irish
oatmeal, etc.)

We also use 'oatmeal' to refer to the cooked hot breakfast cereal.
'Porridge' is considered British and/or archaic.  If you said
'porridge' to a group of Americans in a word association test, I'll
bet a significant percentage of them would reply 'Goldilocks' or
'bear'.

Brighid ni Chiarain