There, I said it. The reason I don’t like it is not so much because of the taste – the stuff doesn’t actually have much of a taste of its own, though what it does have I don’t find very attractive – as because of the way it feels in my mouth. There is, for me, something unbearably, slidingly glutinous about porridge that pretty much does turn my stomach. Frankly, any time that I do try it, I can’t get over the feeling that I’m basically eating wallpaper paste. Now, I wish this was not the case; I feel a bit bad that I don’t like porridge, because I am Scottish, after all, and I even feel – albeit to a relatively small degree and with the usual liberal corollaries regarding nationalism, bigotry and the randomness of birth and subsequent identity – proud to be Scottish, and porridge is an undeniable part of my heritage. It’s arguably an important part of that heritage, because the seed it’s made from, oats, has played a vital role in keeping Scottish people fed over the centuries.
