Porridge.—Put a pint and a half of water into a delicately clean pot (always keep one for the purpose), and directly it boils well, sprinkle in gradually with your left hand about a good teacupful of oatmeal (stirring it all the time vigorously with your right hand), and let it boil gently for quite half-an-hour; then add rather over half a teaspoonful of salt, and boil for ten minutes longer. Dish in a basin or soup plate, a jug of milk, or cream, or buttermilk, being sent to table with it. The Scotch use a long stick something like a wooden
sppon-handle for stirring it, which is known as “the porritch spurtle;” failing this use a clean wooden spoon. Always keep one pot for porridge-making, and be very careful the moment it is done with to pour into it half a pint or so of cold water, as oatmeal gets very hot and cooks after it leaves the fire; so, if neglected, the pan would inevitably catch and burn, and the same fate would certainly befall the next batch of porridge cooked in it. Use “medium” meal, and be very particular as to its quality and freshness.