Summary
The sudden proliferation of porridge is there for all to see, across the country. Café chains like Pret, Starbucks, McDonalds; instant tubs on offer in your local supermarket; on the train, even. Sheila Dillon explores the current fashion for porridge, and meets the "porridge pioneers" who have ridden the sticky porridge wave and created booming porridge businesses. She eats breakfast with Alex Healy Hutchinson, founder of the Covent Garden porridge restaurant 26 Grains; she tours the Edinburgh factory of Stoats Oats, a business which started from a mobile porridge van at rock festivals and is now on track for a turnover of £10 million. She hears from contestants from all over the world at this year's Golden Spurtle International Porridge Championship, and she talks to the Harvard scientist who published the largest study about the health benefits of porridge. (Yes it certainly is good for you.) Finally, back in her kitchen Sheila convenes her own porridge championship with Jamaican chef Levi Roots, Scandinavian chef Trine Hahnemann and Scottish chef Shirley Spear. Whose porridge will taste best? And which Bob Marley song has a verse about cooking porridge?
Transcript
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| 0:49.0 | Hello, you've downloaded a podcast of BBC Radio 4's The Food Programme. Welcome to our world, from cooking to culture, politics to pleasure. We hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:55.0 | A couple of months ago, a small village in the Cangorms was taken over by crowds of chanting |
| 1:08.0 | supporters for what you might easily have mistaken for something rowedily sporting. It was in fact the annual |
| 1:16.8 | porridge championships, the Golden Spurtle. Contestants from all over the |
| 1:22.3 | world had gathered bags of oats in hand to cook the perfect porridge under exam conditions in the Village Hall, and it was a pretty heated affair. |
| 1:34.0 | I'm Arthur Surov and we're here with our Russian team participating in this contest. |
| 1:44.0 | It's the thing to eat in for breakfast. |
| 1:46.8 | So I would say almost everybody in Russia |
| 1:48.5 | is porridge for breakfast. |
| 1:49.6 | All Eastern European countries are big fanatics. |
| 1:52.0 | I'm Isar Khan from Aberdeen, a kidney specialist. |
| 1:55.0 | I've been making porridge for about 15 years every day in the morning. |
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