Since 1994, the Golden Spurtle has hosted a thrilling tournament in Carrbridge, Scotland. Every autumn (or as I like to say, fall), the World Porridge Making Championship pits the world’s gnarliest porridge makers against each other in a battle of heartiest eats 1. Competitors clash in a good ol’ fashioned cook-off to see whose oatmeal is the yummiest. But in 2009, for the good of all oat-eaters, the Golden Spurtle and Mary’s Meals, a hunger charity, established October 10 as World Porridge Day.
On World Porridge Day, oat-eaters join to break the fast with a bowl of porridge while also making an effort to feed small children who are hungry for food and knowledge. Mary’s Meals helps to bring food to hungry schoolchildren around the world, but the organizers of World Porridge Day encourage partakers to organize their own charitable events around porridge.
What Is a Spurtle?
With all this talk of golden spurtles, you may be wondering, ‘What is a spurtle, some kind of squirrel/turtle hybrid?’ Well, to the world-class porridge maker, a spurtle is an essential cooking utensil.
The Scots word spurtle, has similar roots to the English word spatula which ultimately comes from the Latin spatula, meaning ‘broad piece’ 2. Early spurtles were spatula-shaped cooking utensils used for flipping oatcakes. But they evolved into their current shape to aid in the stirring of oatmeal. You see, when stirring your porridge, the broad concave design of a spoon tends to collect the oatmeal into globs resulting in a lumpy and chunky porridge. But a spurtle is evenly convex on all sides. This helps to maintain a smooth and even-textured porridge 3.
Reductionists will say, ‘Well, that just sounds like a stick’. But if we’re going to start accusing things of being sticks, couldn’t you easily say a rolling pin is just a stick or chopsticks are just…sticks?
A spurtle is much more than a stick, it’s the porridge maker’s magic wand. How else would you transfigure grain kernels into creamy, fiber-rich goodness like only Professor McGonagall could? In terms of aesthetics, a Scottish “thistle top” is traditional. Though I suppose a wooden dowel would do for those who hate fun.
Who Was Goldilocks?
Spurtles aren’t just for oatmeal either. Technically porridge can refer to oat porridge (oatmeal), wheat porridge (cream of wheat) or even maize porridge (grits or polenta) which all benefit from the spurtle’s power to please fussy little eaters. Speaking of which, did you know that in the originally recorded version of “The Story of the Three Bears” 4, the character of Goldilocks was actually a mean old lady? And Goldilocks didn’t always have locks of gold either. For a while she was known as Silver-hair 5.
Oat porridge is a nutritious and delicious slow food, so why not take the morning to break out your trusty spurtle, welcome in any would-be home intruders and help feed a hungry child.
- Golden Spurtle
- “Spatula” | Online Etymology Dictionary
- Batchelor, Anna Louise | “The Spurtle; customs, myths, legends and lump free Porridge” | Porridge Lady | 2014
- Southey, Robert | “The Story of the Three Bears” | The Doctor | 1837
- Cundall, Joseph | “Story of the Three Bears” | A Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young Children | 1850