Goldilocks would have been in her element last Sunday if she’d visited the Scottish Highland village of Carrbridge, host to the annual World Porridge Making Championship.
This year a Scot managed to snatch the trophy back from last year’s US winner.
But the triumphant Neal Robertson, of the Tannochbrae Tearoom, Auchtermuchty abandoned the traditional wooden spurtle, or porridge stirrer, for his prizewinning bowl. Instead he used a “spon” – a kitchen utensil of his own invention.
He said the wooden, double-backed spoon gave “twice the power to mixing and beating”. Instead of having a convex and a concave side like a regular wooden spoon, both sides are convex so batter doesn’t clog up on the business end.
The other secret weapon in his armoury was water from the hills above Auchtermuchty.
“This year we found a local source of water called Lady Mary’s Well.” he told The Scotsman. “Lady Mary wasn’t really a lady – she ran an illicit still around Burns’ time and when the excise guys caught up with her, they smashed all her stock and filled in the cave. The story is the whiskey is still seeping down.”
Champion Neal Robertson with Catherine Caldwell, specialty section winner- Picture Paul Campbell
As the day’s porridge maker deemed to have made the best traditional porridge using oatmeal, salt and water, Robertson collected the Golden Spurtle Trophy. To mark International Porridge Day, professional chefs and porridge-making enthusiasts from across the UK took part, along with international competitors from Canada, the USA and Sweden.
But regular porridge wasn’t the only item on the menu. A specialty section allowed entrants to add other ingredients and apparently there was quite an array of oat cuisine.
Celebrity guest judge Tom Shields, author and columnist for Scottish newspaper The Herald , wrote the following day that he’d been asked what he looked for when it came to oatmeal.
“I replied: ‘I’m from Glasgow, so something deep-fried will do’. Chef Matthew Cox from Oregon duly obliged with a portion of fritters – lumps of oat risotto with pancetta, porcini, pecorino cheese and sundry herbs deep-fried in breadcrumbs and served with tomato sauce,” said Shields. “Mr Cox’s creation could change the face of the chip shop fritter.”
Other dishes he savoured – after already tasting 20 plates of porridge – included a fusion of porridge and kedgeree, a dish of scallops and king prawns with a vivid pesto porridge coulis. a gooseberry oat brulee with amaretto… I imagine, like Goldilocks, he was starting to look for a bed to sleep it at this stage.
Winner of the speciality porridge section was Catherine Caldwell, a freelance cookery and food writer from Calgary, Canada, with her Canadian cranberry apple crunch recipe.
Check out the photogallery from the day below and read more about:
- Neal Robertson’s spon and how it works
- The World Porridge Making Championship
- The Tannochbrae Tearoom – used in the filming of Scottish Television’s Dr Finlay
________________________________
Here is an extract from my copy of F. Marian McNeill’s The Scots Kitchen, published 1929
PORRIDGE
‘The halesome parritch, chief o’ Scotia’s food.’-Burns.
(The One and Only Method)
Oatmeal, salt, water
It is advisable to keep a goblet exclusively for porridge.
Allow for each person one breakfastcupful of water, a handful of oatmeal (about an ounce and a quarter), and a small saltspoonful of salt. Use fresh spring water and be particular about the quality of the oatmeal. Midlothian oats are reputed to be unsurpassed, but the small Highland oats are very sweet.
Bring the water to the boil and as soon as it reaches boiling point add the oatmeal, letting it fall in a steady rain from the left hand and stirring it briskly the while with the right, sunwise, the right-hand turn for luck-and convenience. A porridge-stick called a spurtle and in some parts a theevil, or, as in Shetland, a gruel-tree, is used for this purpose. Be careful to avoid lumps unless the children clamour for them. When the porridge is boiling steadily, draw the mixture to the side and put on the lid.
Let it cook for from twenty to thirty minutes according to the quality of the oatmeal, and do not add the salt, which has a tendency to harden the meal and prevent its swelling, until it has cooked for at least ten minutes. On the other hand, never cook porridge without salt. Ladle straight into cold porringers or soup-plates and serve with individual bowls of cream, or milk, or buttermilk.
Each spoonful of porridge, which should be very hot, is dipped in the cream or milk, which should be quite cold, before it is conveyed to the mouth.
