Porridge

Porridge is a semi-solid food made by soaking, poaching, or boiling ground, crushed, or chopped starchy plants—most often grain—in milk or water. It has been a traditional staple in many countries. The word has several spellings, including porage (now obsolete in the United Kingdom), parritch (used in Scotland and Northern England), and parrige (found in Scotland and the Caribbean).

Porridge is usually cooked or served with added flavorings like salt, sugar, honey, fruit, jam, or syrup, but it can also be mixed with spices, fish, meat, or vegetables to create a savory dish. It is typically served hot in a bowl or pot, depending on how thick it is. Many varieties have their own names: oat porridge is called oatmeal in North America and is one of the most common types; others include polenta (from maize), poi (from taro), gruel (a thinner oat porridge), congee (an Asian savory rice porridge), and brose and crowdie (Scottish uncooked oat porridges made with water).

In British English—used in Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand—the term "porridge" specifically refers to oat porridge made from rolled oats or oatmeal cooked in water and/or milk. It is traditionally eaten for breakfast with salt, sugar, honey, jam, whisky, plant milks, milk, cream, and/or butter; popular 21st-century toppings include syrup, seeds, nuts, and chocolate. Other grains used for porridge include rice, maize, wheat (as in frumenty), barley, corn, triticale, and buckwheat.

Porridge can be eaten at any meal of the day. It is a common snack or breakfast, lunch, or dinner in many cultures worldwide.

Unenriched porridge (as oatmeal), cooked by boiling or microwave, is 84% water. It contains 12% carbohydrates (including 2% dietary fiber) and 2% each of protein and fat. In a 100-gram reference amount, cooked porridge provides 71 calories and 26% of the Daily Value for manganese, with no other micronutrients in significant amounts.

A 2014 review found that daily intake of at least 3 grams of oat beta-glucan lowers total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels by 5–10% in people with normal or elevated blood cholesterol. Beta-glucan works by inhibiting cholesterol production, and the reduction is greater in those with higher total and LDL cholesterol. In 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a final ruling allowing health claims on food labels for products containing soluble fiber from whole oats (oat bran, oat flour, and rolled oats), noting that 3.0 grams of soluble fiber daily from these foods may reduce the risk of heart disease. To qualify, the food must provide at least 0.75 grams of soluble fiber per serving.

Maize porridges include atole (a Mexican dish of corn flour in water or milk), champurrado (a chocolate-based atole from Mexico, with a Philippine version called tsampurado that uses rice instead of maize), cir/păsat/mămăligă (Romanian maize porridges), colada (a Colombian and Ecuadorian hot dish with corn starch, milk, sugar, and cinnamon), cornmeal mush (traditional in southern and mid-Atlantic U.S. states), cornmeal porridge (parrige, a Caribbean and Rastafarian breakfast dish of fine semolina with milk or water, often with allspice and sugar), farina or papilla (a Dominican porridge of maize or grass peas), gachas (a Spanish maize or grass pea porridge, often garnished with roasted almonds and croutons fried in olive oil), gofio (a Canary Islands porridge of toasted coarse-ground maize, also made with other grains), grits (ground hominy common in the southern U.S., served with butter, salt, and black pepper, sometimes with cheese), kačamak (a Balkan maize porridge), kānga pirau (a fermented corn porridge made by the Māori of New Zealand), mazamorra (a Colombian maize porridge from the Paisa region, sweet or salty), polenta (an Italian maize porridge cooked solid and sliced), rubaboo (made from dried maize and peas with animal fat, a staple of the Voyageurs), shuco (a Salvadoran dish of black, blue, or purple corn flour with pumpkin seeds, chili sauce, and red kidney beans, traditionally drunk from a gourd), suppawn or hasty pudding (common in American colonial times, made from cornmeal boiled with milk, still eaten today but not necessarily corn-based), žganci (a maize porridge in Croatia and Slovenia), and api morado (a warm breakfast drink from Bolivia made with purple corn).

Millet porridges include foxtail millet porridge (a staple in northern China), pearl millet porridge (the staple food in Niger and the Sahel), Middle Eastern millet porridge (often seasoned with cumin and honey), munchiro sayo (a millet porridge of the Ainu people in northern Japan), milium in aqua (a Roman millet porridge made with goat's milk), ragi porridge called jaava (a summer breakfast item in Telugu-speaking regions of India), and koozh (a millet porridge commonly sold in Tamil Nadu).