Flandrin and Montanari write in their
History of Food
that porridge is the most common food in the world.
Call it
farineta
, talvina, polenta,
asida
, blanched gofio,
porridge
,
fufú
,
mazamorra
,
congee
,
canjica
,
maccu
or
mâza
, practically every country, every region and every town has its own version.
If we look at history, we see that the most humble people and groups in society, always numerous, have subsisted on porridge.
The carbohydrates – starches, pectins and starches – contained in vegetables have the quality of swelling and getting in the way of water during boiling.
The better distributed the ingredient is, the more clogging it will cause and the greater its thickening quality.
When the heat applied is intense enough to evaporate the water, the textures become crispy - this is the case of potato chips, resulting from frying in oil at high temperature, or the crust of baked bread.
But cooking a seed or root reduced to powder in a liquid causes thickening.
The preparation of porridge was the fastest, easiest, most accessible and economical way in terms of technology, technique, time and fuel, to obtain a pleasant and energetic meal.
The writer Isabel Allende began her book
Aphrodite
(2003), a
collage
of stories and recipes about food and sensuality, evoking a tragic experience;
that of the illness that took her daughter Paula away from her.
She explained that, at that time, the only food she could eat was rice pudding: that white, dense, sweet dessert provided her with something resembling comfort.
She caught my attention because in my family, the food we crave on days of emotional anxiety is mashed potatoes.
We agreed to seek solace in pasty, basic, comforting foods;
in spoonfuls that, ultimately, make us bring our lips together in the exact movement with which babies draw their first words: “Mom,” “Dad.”
The attachment to these thick spoonfuls has been consolidated through the thousands of years that humanity has been consuming cereals, legumes and tubers.
The resulting gentle textures, easy flavors, and warm or hot temperatures are etched in the memory of our species as a symbol of care, although some viscerally reject them.
A study published in
Food Science & Nutrition
in 2015 established a classification of consumers based on their preference for some textures or others.
According to their conclusions, we are divided into grinders, chewers, crushers and suckers: beyond the group with which each one identifies, cereal porridges are among the first foods that are introduced into the diet of babies, and the last ones that The elderly and sick consume it.
Although in all likelihood the dish is much older, the first evidence of consumption dates back to 3,500 years ago.
The Phoenicians make them from wheat, barley or spelled flour, or from legumes such as chickpeas, lentils and broad beans.
The English term
pulses
comes from the Latin word for porridge,
puls
, from which 'polenta' is also derived.
The Latin comedian Plautus mocked the Phoenicians of Carthage by calling them “porridge eaters,” but the truth is that the popular classes of Rome also sustained themselves thanks to them.
Cato the Elder, defender of austerity, vindicates the
pulse
in his book
On Agriculture
, and gives a recipe enriched with cheese, honey and eggs.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the medieval world continues to eat cooked flour:
porridge
, so fashionable, was not invented yesterday;
Oats were the staple cereal from the British Isles to the Scandinavian countries.
In Slavic countries, porridge turns grayish, because it is made from buckwheat (any available cereal or legume is used, including chestnuts in the forested areas of the Mediterranean).
In China and the rice-growing countries, broken grains are ground to make
congee
, and it wasn't that long ago that porridge was our staple, which is why there are survivors of lean times who don't even want to see it.
But we are predisposed by history to enjoy them.
In America, Europeans discovered corn, a rich cereal with a miraculous yield.
In the 18th century, the Cantabrian coast, southeastern France and northern Italy already consumed corn tortillas and polentas: it is a pity that the conquerors did not learn nixtamalization, which makes corn more digestible and nutritious.
In 1730, the first outbreak of pellagra - which devastated Italy, France and the Balkans - was declared in Asturias, a serious disease caused by consuming unnixtamalized corn as almost the only food.
Hunger is a source of diseases: in dryland Spain, subsistence based on pea flour, a legume grown to feed livestock, caused epidemics of lathyrism after the Civil War.
Today we continue to watch on television how elderly people, women and children in famine-stricken areas queue to get rations of
ugali
, corn flour porridge ubiquitous in sub-Saharan Africa, which in good times accompany vegetable, fish or meat stews.
We collect here some porridge recipes to pay tribute to this perfect food for cloudy days outside or in our soul.
Take advantage.
Gofio escaldón with green mojo
Easy to make and cheapJOSÉ MIGUEL DÍAZ MANDUCA
Time:
5 minutes
Ingredients
For 4 people
1 l of broth (meat, fish or vegetable)
250 g of gofio
1 onion
150 g fresh cheese
Green Mojito
1 bunch of cilantro
2 garlic
200 ml EVOO
30 ml of vinegar
½ teaspoon cumin
Salt
Instructions
Porridge with anise and rice
04:03
Poleá: the richest poor dessert |
THE FOODIST
Time:
15 minutes
Ingredients
For 4 to 6 persons
3 tablespoons of wheat flour
40 ml EVOO
500 ml of milk or water
The peel of half a lemon (only the yellow part)
1 teaspoon matalahúva
1 tablespoon anise
2-3 tablespoons of sugar
Arrope or cane honey
Instructions
Whiskey porridge
You can serve them as an appetizerManuel MV (FLICKR)
Ingredients
90 g of pea flour
3-4 cloves of garlic
80 g bacon
1 chorizo
½ l of water (approximately)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 chilli
Salt
Instructions
Porridge
with coconut milk and strawberries
The most beautiful porridge you can makeSarka Babicka (Getty Images)
Time:
10 minutes
Ingredients
For 4 people
200g strawberries
1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
a few drops of lemon
400 ml of milk
400 ml coconut milk
180 g oat flakes
75 g cottage cheese
Lemon zest
Sugar or sweetener to taste
Instructions
Maccu di favi
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Time:
90 minutes
Ingredients
For 4 people
300 g peeled dried broad beans
A bunch of fresh – or not – wild fennel
½ whole or chopped fresh hot chilli (or to taste)
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Instructions
Bissara
Time:
60 minutes
Ingredients
300 g peeled dried peas
1.5 liters of cold water
4 tablespoons EVOO
1 onion peeled and chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1 pinch of chili flakes
A handful of fresh cilantro (can be substituted with mint)
1 tablespoon argan oil for cooking (or sesame oil)
Salt
Instructions
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