Juxtaposed with Overnight Oats, a soggy breakfast confection consisting of oats and stuff that have been soaking in milk overnight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muesli
@ itsamike (2) – Excellent solution: that overnight milk treatment must be the answer to the comic puzzler.
P.S. Over the course of nearly three decades in Germany, I have encountered a wide variety of nearly inedible “Müesli” mixtures (even including linseeds, which I find revolting). Perhaps a long-term soak might make the stuff more palatable, but I have never met anyone who does it that way these days (the German article claims that “the fine flakes available today only need a short softening period“).
@Kilby, I’m with you–I’ve always snickered at cereal ads that tout staying crisp in milk: I like my cereal soggy!
@Kilby, thanks. Overnight Oats have become quite trendy in recent years. I’ve tried them in Starbucks stores in both the UK and my usual stomping grounds in the US.
There are worse things you could have for breakfast, but my wife hates them.
(former Quaker Oats employee here) The classic tradeoff with oats is time versus taste. The time profile is steel cut > old fashioned > quick > instant, but the taste profile runs the other way. (Instant Oatmeal get loaded up with sugar and artificial flavorings, and even then I can’t really stand them). Overnight oats is one attempted solution: soak them the night before. But most recipes for overnight oats also load them up with lots of other things.
One year my Scots housemate made a huge bowl of it for a Christmas party. We had some left over so that’s what I had for breakfast every morning for a few days.
I have some steel-cut oats that I got because it was on closeout at the supermarket and I wanted the metal container. I normally have old-fashioned oats. I have tried the overnight method with the SC oats, but prefer simmering for a bit then covered on low heat for a goodly while.
I’ve never really cared for oatmeal (I prefer Cream of Wheat), but over here there’s an amusing linguistic distinction: Germans who like (or are indifferent to) oatmeal call it by the “standard” name: “Haferbrei”, whereas those who dislike the stuff (including my wife) sometimes deride it by calling it “Haferschleim” (meaning “oat slime”).
P.S. @ Phil (4) – The soaking I mentioned @3 was only in the context of trying to rescue one of those mixtures resembling birdseeds; I firmly agree with Linus (in “Peanuts”) on the subject of (cold) cerealconsistency:
I guess I’m not familiar with the phrase “overnight oats”.
Samuel Johnson, lexicographer, defined oats as “A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”
Oatmeal and porridge, the British term for the breakfast food, are mostly but not entirely interchangeable (porridge can be made of things other than oats, though I’ve never seen it). “Doing porridge” is a slang term for a spell in prison, dating from the 50s, due to the regularity of it appearing at breakfast. A well-known BBC TV sitcom from the 70s was called Porridge, starring Ronnie Barker and Kate Beckinsale’s father, Richard, who unfortunately went to a very early grave. Apparently porridge is no longer served in British jails.
porridge can be made of things other than oats
Well, remember “pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot three days old”?
And speaking of “pease porridge”, here is much of the Etymonline entry for “pea”. It’s nice to see that the “mistaken for a plural” story is still accepted in scholarship!
pea (n.)
“the seed of a hardy leguminous vine,” a well-known article of food, early or mid-17c., a false singular from Middle English pease (plural pesen), which was both single and collective (as wheat, corn) but the “s” sound was mistaken for the plural inflection. From Old English pise (West Saxon), piose (Mercian) “pea,” from Late Latin pisa, variant of Latin pisum “pea,” probably a loan-word from Greek pison “the pea,” a word of unknown origin (Klein suggests it is from Thracian or Phrygian).
@ mitch (12) – Your porridge still has six days to go: my “Mother Goose” clearly states “nine days old”, and then there’s this piece of doggerel by Walt Kelly (“Double Sundae”, page 94):
A Tuppenny Thrupence
Please plorridge hlot!
Please plorridge clold!
Please plorridge in the plot,
Nline dlays lold.
Regarding Johnson’s definition of oats, some Scotsman retorted “Aye, and that’s why England is known for her horses, and Scotland for her men!”
There are of course many dishes of grain cooked in liquid. Most aren’t called porridge. Then again, in the US, porridge just isn’t a common word.
United States children know about porridge from the story of Goldilocks and the Tree Bears. Porridge, whatever it is, is something that bears eat and is always too hot, too cold, or just right.
@ MiB (17) – Not my kids: Whenever I told them that story, I didn’t feel like explaining what “porridge” was, so I just shifted the meal from breakfast to lunch, and Mama Bear made “soup” instead. It’s not like there’s a copyright on the text.
@Kilby: I don’t see what’s wrong with “Goldilocks and the Three Tigers.” I think it’s a great story!
@ MiB – I agree that it’s a fantastic tale, the interjection at the beginning of the P.S. was merely to convey “…despite its use of the term ‘porridge’…” (which tigers normally dislike, except as a garnish or dipping sauce).
Linus should learn that dry cereal can be eaten, well, dry – no milk added. I have preferred and eaten my Cheerios dry since I was a small child – and over the decades as breakfast (which is easily portable to the school bus in a plastic bag for those of us who as children or adults do not waken easily) and more recently as late night snack (as our three meals a day are lunch, dinner, late night snack).
@ Meryl (21) – I was definitely too young to have read the earlier of those two comics when they appeared in the newspaper, but perhaps they were read to me, or maybe I saw them later in one of the book collections. Even back then (as a kid), I thought that Linus was being exceptionally silly and/or stupid: all he needed to do was to look for the comic book before he poured the milk onto the cereal.
P.S. @9 – It turns out that Calvin is definitely on the Haferschleim side of the debate:
Comics I Don't Understand 
It’s the guy from the Quaker Oats box. He’ll be an overnight guest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaker_Oats_Company
Juxtaposed with Overnight Oats, a soggy breakfast confection consisting of oats and stuff that have been soaking in milk overnight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muesli
@ itsamike (2) – Excellent solution: that overnight milk treatment must be the answer to the comic puzzler.
P.S. Over the course of nearly three decades in Germany, I have encountered a wide variety of nearly inedible “Müesli” mixtures (even including linseeds, which I find revolting). Perhaps a long-term soak might make the stuff more palatable, but I have never met anyone who does it that way these days (the German article claims that “the fine flakes available today only need a short softening period“).
@Kilby, I’m with you–I’ve always snickered at cereal ads that tout staying crisp in milk: I like my cereal soggy!
@Kilby, thanks. Overnight Oats have become quite trendy in recent years. I’ve tried them in Starbucks stores in both the UK and my usual stomping grounds in the US.
There are worse things you could have for breakfast, but my wife hates them.
(former Quaker Oats employee here) The classic tradeoff with oats is time versus taste. The time profile is steel cut > old fashioned > quick > instant, but the taste profile runs the other way. (Instant Oatmeal get loaded up with sugar and artificial flavorings, and even then I can’t really stand them). Overnight oats is one attempted solution: soak them the night before. But most recipes for overnight oats also load them up with lots of other things.
If you want to soak your oats overnight, make Atholl Brose instead. It’s much tastier! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atholl_brose
One year my Scots housemate made a huge bowl of it for a Christmas party. We had some left over so that’s what I had for breakfast every morning for a few days.
I have some steel-cut oats that I got because it was on closeout at the supermarket and I wanted the metal container. I normally have old-fashioned oats. I have tried the overnight method with the SC oats, but prefer simmering for a bit then covered on low heat for a goodly while.
I’ve never really cared for oatmeal (I prefer Cream of Wheat), but over here there’s an amusing linguistic distinction: Germans who like (or are indifferent to) oatmeal call it by the “standard” name: “Haferbrei”, whereas those who dislike the stuff (including my wife) sometimes deride it by calling it “Haferschleim” (meaning “oat slime”).
P.S. @ Phil (4) – The soaking I mentioned @3 was only in the context of trying to rescue one of those mixtures resembling birdseeds; I firmly agree with Linus (in “Peanuts”) on the subject of (cold) cereal consistency:
I guess I’m not familiar with the phrase “overnight oats”.
Samuel Johnson, lexicographer, defined oats as “A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”
Oatmeal and porridge, the British term for the breakfast food, are mostly but not entirely interchangeable (porridge can be made of things other than oats, though I’ve never seen it). “Doing porridge” is a slang term for a spell in prison, dating from the 50s, due to the regularity of it appearing at breakfast. A well-known BBC TV sitcom from the 70s was called Porridge, starring Ronnie Barker and Kate Beckinsale’s father, Richard, who unfortunately went to a very early grave. Apparently porridge is no longer served in British jails.
porridge can be made of things other than oats
Well, remember “pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot three days old”?
And speaking of “pease porridge”, here is much of the Etymonline entry for “pea”. It’s nice to see that the “mistaken for a plural” story is still accepted in scholarship!
pea (n.)
“the seed of a hardy leguminous vine,” a well-known article of food, early or mid-17c., a false singular from Middle English pease (plural pesen), which was both single and collective (as wheat, corn) but the “s” sound was mistaken for the plural inflection. From Old English pise (West Saxon), piose (Mercian) “pea,” from Late Latin pisa, variant of Latin pisum “pea,” probably a loan-word from Greek pison “the pea,” a word of unknown origin (Klein suggests it is from Thracian or Phrygian).
@ mitch (12) – Your porridge still has six days to go: my “Mother Goose” clearly states “nine days old”, and then there’s this piece of doggerel by Walt Kelly (“Double Sundae”, page 94):
A Tuppenny Thrupence
Please plorridge hlot!
Please plorridge clold!
Please plorridge in the plot,
Nline dlays lold.
Regarding Johnson’s definition of oats, some Scotsman retorted “Aye, and that’s why England is known for her horses, and Scotland for her men!”
There are of course many dishes of grain cooked in liquid. Most aren’t called porridge. Then again, in the US, porridge just isn’t a common word.
United States children know about porridge from the story of Goldilocks and the Tree Bears. Porridge, whatever it is, is something that bears eat and is always too hot, too cold, or just right.
@ MiB (17) – Not my kids: Whenever I told them that story, I didn’t feel like explaining what “porridge” was, so I just shifted the meal from breakfast to lunch, and Mama Bear made “soup” instead. It’s not like there’s a copyright on the text.
P.S. Nevertheless, think I prefer the version that Hobbes wrote for Calvin:
@Kilby: I don’t see what’s wrong with “Goldilocks and the Three Tigers.” I think it’s a great story!
@ MiB – I agree that it’s a fantastic tale, the interjection at the beginning of the P.S. was merely to convey “…despite its use of the term ‘porridge’…” (which tigers normally dislike, except as a garnish or dipping sauce).
Linus should learn that dry cereal can be eaten, well, dry – no milk added. I have preferred and eaten my Cheerios dry since I was a small child – and over the decades as breakfast (which is easily portable to the school bus in a plastic bag for those of us who as children or adults do not waken easily) and more recently as late night snack (as our three meals a day are lunch, dinner, late night snack).
@ Meryl (21) – I was definitely too young to have read the earlier of those two comics when they appeared in the newspaper, but perhaps they were read to me, or maybe I saw them later in one of the book collections. Even back then (as a kid), I thought that Linus was being exceptionally silly and/or stupid: all he needed to do was to look for the comic book before he poured the milk onto the cereal.
P.S. @9 – It turns out that Calvin is definitely on the Haferschleim side of the debate: