ZKV 113
Foraging into porage
porridge(n.)
1530s, porage "thickened soup of vegetables boiled in water, with or without meat," an alteration of pottage, perhaps from influence of Middle English porray, porreie"leek broth," which is from Old French poree "leek soup," from Vulgar Latin *porrata, from Latin porrum "leek." Or perhaps the modern word is a corruption of porray itself, by influence of pottage.
The spelling with -idge is attested from c. 1600. The meaning "food made by slowly stirring meal or flour of oats, peas, etc. into water or milk while boiling till a thick mass is formed" is from 1640s, first in Scottish.
As I tuck in to my daily dose of organic, coarse-rolled oatflakes, there is this sudden glimpse from childhood: A highly muscular man in a kilt, apparently throwing a cannonball. His shoulders and outflung left arm seems to offer three more such rotundities, his pectorals a further pair:
That is how he looked back then (picture on left). He has been bowdlerized since then (picture on right). He is less of a craggy he-man, his shot-putting would be pitiful in comparison, and he no longer is almost in need of a bra.
Ah, the ruggedness has gone – has the roughage too, I wonder. Et ego in arcadia vixi?
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