Oatmeal: it's part of this nutritious breakfast.

Let's talk about oatmeal. It's many things to many people. Years ago, a colleague was describing a trip home to visit family in New England. Her little nephew burst into the room and announced, "I had oatmeal for breakfast!" Then he paused, considered a moment, and asked, "What is oatmeal?" Problem is, there's no real concensus on that matter.

To some consumers, oatmeal is Kwick Kwaker Oats, a gluey, unpalateable bowl of gunk forced on children who'd far rather be eating what Alison Bechdel calls "Frosted Fruit Bats." (Remember the Richard Bennett poster, the Quaker Oats logo with the face of Richard Nixon and the name changed to "Old Fashioned Quaker Oafs?") To others, that instant stuff is comfort food, especially when laced with sugar, fruit, honey, even lumps of butter. And of course, someone, somewhere always seems to want to dump cinnamon on it.

As you've heard us say before (over and over and over again), humanity has a real talent for elaborating things. If you don't believe it, just Google "oatmeal" and see what happens. As of the day we wrote this, there were one million six hundred and ten thousand hits, with the Quaker guys at the top, a site about using a Quaker Oats box to make a pinhole camera second, and third: McCann's Irish Oatmeal. And McCann's, friends, is the truth if you're an oatmeal aficionado (hmmm ... not a bad title for a magazine. Coney, get me somebody at McGraw-Hill on the phone!)

Now McCann's doesn't have the product line, the market share, or the capitalization of its bigger competitor, but it has two things the Quakers lack: traditional flavor and authenticity on the one hand and incredibly classy packaging on the other. McCann's does make an instant product, as well as a quick-cook version, but if you want real oatmeal, you want the old original slow-cooking, nutty, toothsome McCann's Original Steel-cut Irish Oatmeal.

Why? And what the hell is "steel-cut" all about? Why is because we said so, that's why. Sit down and eat your damn breakfast before it gets cold. It's good for you. And it tastes ... well, it tastes like oatmeal, that's what. Wonderful, that's all we can say. And steel-cut means that the oat grains themselves are simply cut into smaller chunks with steel disks (according to the McCann's site), not smashed flat and steamed like the rolled oats that go into quicker, lesser products.

Ok so how do you make 'em? Nothing to it. You put a quantity of the oats into four times as much boiling, salted water, bring it down to a simmer, and let it go for 30 minutes. That's all. Stir it occasionally, especially if you're not using a non-stick pot. And then you pour a little milk on it and eat it up.

And if there's a sausage or two on the table, perhaps a free-range egg, a little fruit ... well, where's the harm in that? Breakfast is a much-neglected meal, and a man needs something to sustain him throughout the long hours to lunch.

CII Rates: McCann's Original Steel-cut Irish Oatmeal

	Usefulness	Except for it taking half an hour to cook, it's plenty useful. Got all that good grain nutrition going for it, fibre, all that.
	Snobbery	We'd have given it three noses, since it's the absolute best going, except how haute can oatmeal be, anyway?

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