Fermented Oat Porridge Recipe

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Fermenting oats before preparing porridge creates a more nutritious dish with a creamier texture.
Fermenting oats before preparing porridge creates a more nutritious dish with a creamier texture.
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"Wild Fermentation" by Sandor Ellix Katz gives the reader an in-depth look at live-culture cuisine. The author swears by the nutritious aspect of fermentation, a practice that has been alive since the beginning of human culture.

Wild Fermentation (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2003) by Sandor Ellix Katz explores the variety of dishes that can be made via fermentation. This excerpt comes from chapter 9, “Fermented-Grain Porridges and Beverages”. 

You can purchase this book from the MOTHER EARTH NEWS store: Wild Fermentation

Porridge

Nothing is better for gently waking up your digestive tract and energizing you for the day ahead than porridge. In its many guises, it is the ultimate breakfast food. Crazy Owl, my miso-making mentor, makes porridge that he calls congee, in the Chinese tradition. He places whole grains in a stainless steel thermos at night (with various healing herbs), pours boiled water over them, and leaves them to steep in the insulated environment overnight. The congee is deeply restorative. Lately, one of my fellow communards, Buffy, has been on a porridge-for-breakfast kick, and I’ve been a happy beneficiary of his mush-mania. Most mornings you can hear him cranking our hand grain-grinder, coarsely grinding whole grains, preparing for breakfast. He mixes different grains, toasts the ground grains in a dry cast-iron skillet, and cooks them in water, at a ratio of 1 part grain to 5 parts water. After about 20 minutes of cooking, they are creamy and delicious.

Fermentation can add new dimensions to grain porridges. A 12- to 24-hour soak will increase digestibility and creaminess without altering flavor. Sally Fallon, author of the pro-fermentation cookbook Nourishing Traditions, is emphatic about soaking grains to make them digestible. “The well-meaning advice of many nutritionists, to consume whole grains as our ancestors did and not refined flours and polished rice, is misleading and often harmful in its consequences; for while our ancestors ate whole grains, they did not consume them as presented in our modern cookbooks in the form of quick-rise breads, granolas, and other hastily prepared casseroles and concoctions. Our ancestors, and virtually all preindustrialized peoples, soaked or fermented their grains before making them into porridge, breads, cakes, and casseroles. ”Her scientific rationale, confirmed by Paul Pitchford in Healing with Whole Foods, is that the outer layer of most grains contains a compound called phytic acid, which can block mineral absorption during digestion. Fermenting grains by soaking them before cooking neutralizes phytic acid and renders the grain far more nutritious. A short soak — 24 hours in cool weather, 8 to 12 hours in hot weather — accomplishes this without affecting the flavor.

  • Published on Aug 16, 2016
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