Silverlocks and Golden Syrup

 Thank you for all the comments about how you like your porridge.  I couldn't resist doing a couple of taste tests, but more about that later.

An early 1918 cookery magazine, Isobel's Home Cookery, wrote a feature on how to make up for the shortage of milk and other dairy products.   No problem!  The magazine had lots of helpful suggestions to make porridge more nourishing when milk was not available.

Here is just one recipe, presented in their words. 

Creamed Porridge

A nice name goes a long way, you know!

There's not a drop of cream in it, but it tastes just as smooth and rich as if there was any amount.

I take the best of the dripping from the weekly joint "render" it carefully, so that it may not have the very least flavour of the meat, and beat a little of it into the porridge just before serving.  I allow one good teaspoonful of dripping for each child.

Don't boil the porridge after the dripping is in.

Don't add salt - it is not necessary.

If you use margarine, take twice the quantity-it contains much less actual fat than dripping.

Serve the porridge very hot, or the fat will cake on top and look horrid.

Serve hot syrup with it.  Sugar is not very nice without milk-it is too gritty.

The children simply love creamed porridge, and I think, myself, that it is far and away nicer than the plain kind.

For the sake of the children, I hope syrup was cheap and plentiful.

Unfortunately, further reading shows me that syrup was often not available.    Not to worry, those resourceful cooks at Isobel's had a recipe for a substitute made with dates, glucose and water, if dates and glucose were available, of course.

As for the shortage of milk for a bedtime drink, they recommended a soup made with rice water.  Fry an onion in a little good dripping.  To each onion add a quart of rice water and flavour well with salt-no pepper if the children are to have it.

According to the article, children much prefer it it to hot milk...  

Last word on porridge.  

If only I had golden hair and were many decades younger, I could have presented this little experiment in the manner of Goldilocks and the three bears because that is what it felt like as I sampled three variations of serving porridge.

I tried it with brown sugar and evap, melted butter into another one,  and drizzled golden syrup into the third.  

I discovered that my years of eating porridge without sweetness (other than that added by the evap) made the brown sugar and golden syrup versions far too sweet for my taste.

The butter was interesting.  It definitely made the plain porridge a nicer consistency.  

Old Silverlocks here, will be sticking to plain porridge with evap, but I did enjoy the little experiments, so thank you.