Oatmeat: Not a Typo

Posted on July 15, 2006

While I relish the challenge and reward of concocting victuals that delight the eyes as completely as they’ll content a belly and gladden a wagging tongue, I believe that a simple, honest repast is the stuff and staff of life. We eat in order to live so that we may eat again. Sup as thou wilt, but habitually eating solely for the pleasure of it is a dangerous affront to the general balance of things. The knowledge that I am eating a modest quantity of wholesome, constitution-bolstering foods is pleasure enough for me, and there is art even in artless food.

This shouldn’t be taken to signify that I don’t feel compelled to bray and buck like a tickled ass when a broiled collection of lamb chops is put before me, immaculately trimmed and delicately embellished with confetti of rosemary and mint chiffonade. To sniff the gamy twang against a perfume of herbs, take the warm, pink flesh between the lips and nibble unhurriedly is to know a sort of rapture. The lamb in Croatia is mostly free of the gaminess we Americans are accustomed to tasting in that from New Zealand. I must still visit the isle of Pag and taste the heralded lamb from its hills and pastures. I am told that in addition to being quite distinctive, the flavor of these would-be sheep is by far the cleanest in the republic. The Pag flocks dine on the herbs that grow wild in the sea breeze of that unpolluted place, seasoning themselves from within. Ah, the diet of the lambs!

But if I am allowed only to toss a little salad in a dark room, I will still glow with pleasure. Bring me a plate of raw kale, a small hill of sea salt, a crust of bread and a cruet of oil, and then watch me sate myself. I delight in the sharpness of raw leafy greens, as the perception of bitterness signifies the presence of pow’rful nutrients (or psychoactive alkaloids). I believe it is due partly to my great love for efficiency in all things that my sense of taste is tuned to peal when wholesome, uncomplicated sustenance comes clanging into my maw.

The fragrance alone of whole grains is sufficient to arouse my work ethic, but when one manages to acquire a kilo of McCann’s Steel-Cut Irish Oats in the Republic of Croatia (a bargain was struck with a sailor), one doesn’t stop at sniffing. If lamb can be incorporated into the formula, all the better. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…

Oatmeat.

I developed oatmeat back in February, during this year’s heaviest period of weight training. I had been subsisting primarily on whey protein isolate, L-arginine capsules and tidbits of roasted gyro meat at my job as a rotisserie cook at Spiro’s in St. Louis. When my mother gave me a bag of Irish oats (among other things) for my birthday that month, I began eating more oatmeal. But not being much for sweets, I began to think of oatmeal in a more savory light. The ancient Celts were fond of oats. They’d feed an army from great bronze cauldrons of the stuff, cooked with large hunks of whatever delicious livestock they had on hand, often a side of plundered pork or cattle. I took this knowledge and ran with it one day, refining it slightly.

I brought about a pound of lean ground beef to sizzling in a skillet with onions, then reduced the flame, heaped in a cup of steel-cut oats and covered the mess with beef broth and a lid. I allowed this mixture to simmer slowly, stirring and adding additional broth occasionally to assure that no part of it would burn to the bottom of the pan. When I was satisfied that the oats had absorbed most of the broth and cooked through, I snuffed out the flame, stirred a few handfuls of fresh spinach leaves and an enormous quantity of cracked black pepper therein, then allowed the residual heat of the mixture to cook the spinach gently. Once in the bowl, I crumbled fresh farmer’s cheese I’d curdled a few days earlier over the glop. Ha-cha! Oatmeat! A vast nutritional improvement on the Hamburger Helper formula.

Here in Croatia, I’ve given consideration to the gastronomical proclivities of the locals and made a few alterations to oatmeat. I substituted ground lamb for the beef, and chard for the spinach. Fresh farmer’s cheese is pretty standard procedure here. If you don’t have the time to make your own, Zagrebački sir crumbles nicely and can be found in many international supermarkets throughout the United States.

Work hard and eat your oatmeat.

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