Hurrah for the porridge! A vegetarian hymn

There’s no better courage for a cold winter’s morning than a good hot bowl of Irish oatmeal — say, with apple pie spice and brown sugar and a drizzle of cream. And, as some of you know, few things cheer me up like bad nineteenth-century poetry. So imagine my delight at stumbling across bad nineteenth-century poetry about oatmeal!

All right, try harder, then.

This little ditty first appeared in an English magazine called Vegetarian Messenger in about 1850. For centuries oatmeal had been daily fare in Scotland and the North of England, but as wheat flour grew cheaper in the nineteenth century, white bread began to displace it. In reaction to the growing supply of cheap starch, cheap sugar, and cheap meat, Victorian-era health reformers promoted not only vegetarianism but whole grains. Note the allusions in the poem to old-fashioned goodness and especially to rustic Scotland, as well as the jabs against the nasty sort of meat available to most people. If that juxtaposition sounds familiar, well, the tone of health reform hasn’t changed much in a hundred fifty years.

Here’s the poem in its entirety. I rather think it should be sung, probably to the tune of a sturdy old Methodist hymn. But I can’t decide which one.

The sensible breakfast

From the south to the north, and St. David’s to Norwich,
There’s no breakfast to equal good oatmeal porridge!
Tell me not of tit bits of beef, mutton or pork,
Frizzled — broil’d — underdone — or yet done to a cork:
Name not ham, brawn, or bacon, or aught from the pig:—
Potted veal, beef, and bloaters are not worth a fig:
All fish, flesh, and fowl, are to me filthy forage;
And against all your breakfasts I’ll back oatmeal porridge!
Then hurrah for the porridge! good coarse oatmeal porridge!
Hurrah for the porridge that smokes in the morn!

If this build not the man, prithee tell me what will:—
Is it porridge, or flesh works the Lancashire mill!
The bairn¹ of the north has a cheek like the rose:—
Is it porridge, or flesh whence the ruddy cheek glows!
‘Twill not make the blood fev’rishly course through
Increasing the pulse, and enfeebling the brains;
But the frame shall be stronger, the blood more refined,
And the body be less of a clog to the mind.
Then hurrah for the porridge! good coarse oatmeal porridge!
Hurrah for the porridge that clogs not the mind!

Why your bairn cannot relish beef, mutton, or ham,
Or the mangled remains of the innocent lamb:—
Even fowl, roast, or boil’d, back or breast, wing or limb;
Though they’re dainties, present no attractions to him.
Behold you the contrast:— at breakfast, elate,
He watches the steam rising up from his plate,
As the mess of thick porridge is placed on the board,
And the rich stream of milk in the basin is pour’d.
Then hurrah for the porridge! good coarse oatmeal porridge!
Hurrah for the porridge that smokes on the board!

With an appetite keen does the little one wait,
To demolish the savoury food on his plate;
For he dreams not of gristle, or fat to reject;
Of toughness, queer taste, or putrescent defect;
So he dips in the juice of the sweet central pool;²
And he bathes it in milk so delicious and cool;
And he knows that no food so refreshing and sweet
Could be possibly made from a lump of dead meat!
Then hurrah for the porridge! good coarse oatmeal porridge!
Hurrah for the porridge, refreshing and sweet!

Let the taste of the child, unperverted and true,³
Be a lovely and tender example for you;
Never more let your feast be the offspring of pain,
But the ripe luscious fruit, and the rich golden grain:
Fear not hunger, or weakness, or languid disease;
Wholesome diet will soon banish fancies like these;
And you’ll soon be convinc’d that there’s no kind of forage
For breakfast, can equal good coarse oatmeal porridge!
Then hurrah for the porridge! good coarse oatmeal porridge!
Hurrah for the porridge that smokes in the morn!