Oatmeal and Turnips

No, not together, thank goodness.  But I did, and currently, am eating them.  As I write this, I have a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and dates cooling a bit beside me.

Now both of these are food items I didn’t and wouldn’t eat when I was younger.  In fact, if you want to watch someone gag over dinner, put a scoop of turnips on my plate.  Mom would fix them, in the traditional Southern way, almost like mashed potatoes in consistency.  I was equally consistent in I couldn’t even stand to smell them cooking and would gag and hack my way through eating my obligatory 1 bite. 

However, last weekend I attended an Elizabethan Cooking program through my local Historical Interpretations group and one of the items we prepared was a pottage or soup.  Since potatoes had not come over from the new world yet, we were using turnips, like they would have done.  I helped chop up the little so-and-so’s, trying to figure out how I was going to not gag while eating.

I have to admit though, cooked in a soup, they really didn’t have much taste other than the taste of the soup.  So I had no problem polishing off my bowl, turnips and all.  Not one gag did I gag.

Oatmeal has been an equal trial.  Not quite so bad, but I really didn’t like the texture.  Or at least I think that’s what I don’t like about cooked oatmeal.  Like it in cookies though – cooked or uncooked.  I had purchased a box of instant with raisins and dates, thinking to give it another try.  I know all the benefits associated with oatmeal, but just couldn’t get into the groove, so to speak.  Now that morning temperatures are nippy (cold, according to the girls), I tried yet again to eat oatmeal.  I must say, I am having much better results this time around.  I am making it through most of a bowl.  Noel only has to consume about 2 spoonfuls now.  And I have to admit, I am not as hungry in the mornings before lunch as I use to be.  We’ll see how long it is before I become an oatmeal snob and only do steel cut oatmeal, cooked over the stove rather than a pouch nuked in the microwave.  Rather long time I do believe.  About the same time I buy turnips and bring them home to cook.