Gruel

This article is about the type of food. For the computer worm, see Gruel (computer worm).
Gruel
TypePorridge
Main ingredientsCereal meal or flour, water or milk
VariationsCongee

Gruel is a food consisting of some type of cereal—such as ground oats, wheat, rye, or rice—heated or boiled in water or milk. It is a thinner version of porridge that may be more often drunk rather than eaten. Historically, gruel has been a staple of the Western diet, especially for peasants. Gruel may also be made from millet, hemp, barley, or, in hard times, from chestnut flour or even the less bitter acorns of some oaks. Gruel has historically been associated with feeding the sick[1] and recently-weaned children.

Gruel is also a colloquial expression for any watery food of unknown character, e.g., pea soup.[2][3] Gruel has often been associated with poverty, with negative associations attached to the term in popular culture, as in the Charles Dickens novels Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol.

  1. ^ A gruel of cornmeal, soaked and cooking in a double-boiler, was recommended for typhus patients in The American Journal of Nursing 14.4 (January 1914) p. 296.
  2. ^ The word soup is related to sop, the slice of bread which was soaked in broth or thin gruel.
  3. ^ Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, Anthea Bell, tr. The History of Food, revised ed. 2009, p. 161.