Oats

“Rules at Takiwasi: isolation, boiled green plantain and a little rice or oats twice a day. No salt, sugar, alcohol, pork or spicy food (also avoided up to four weeks after), no sex, no strong sun, rain, fire, smells, chaos or heavy exercise. Long silences. About 20 plant species are dieted there, most poorly studied.”

“Nanakusa-gayu (七草粥, seven-herb rice porridge), 7 January, festival of Jinjitsu no sekku. A Chinese seven-green soup custom, offered to the gods by Emperor Uda in early Heian times, an Edo shogunal ritual that spread to commoners. The seven herbs: seri, nazuna, gogyo, hakobera (chickweed, noted for vitamin A and stomach ache), hotokenoza, suzuna (turnip), suzushiro (daikon). Rationale: greens when vegetables were scarce, rest for a stomach tired from New Year food.”

“Haverpap, Brinta, sinaasappels. Oats in milk, later Brinta from the box, the Christmas orange that became the daily one. Not sourced beyond the generation's memory.”

“The kroedwis of 15 August. In Limburg the blessed bundle is the kroedwis or kroedwusj, "a bouquet of seven hand-picked herbs and flowers", blessed around Maria Hemelvaart at the start of a thirty-day Marian season. The seven of South Limburg: two grains (haver and tarwe), two yellow herbs (sint-janskruid and boerenwormkruid), two white herbs (duizendblad and kamille or koninginnenkruid) and a walnut twig. It hung in the house against misfortune, above all thunderstorms, a piece thrown in the kachel when the storm came.”

“5. The Lying Story (Groome No. 35). Bukovina Roma, from Miklosich. Before I was born, says the teller, my mother wanted roast starlings, so I went to the forest myself. I found them roasted in a hollow tree, climbed in, and the hole closed. I borrowed my godfather's hatchet, and while it fell a bird nested in the handle, and the hatchet gave birth to twelve little hatchets. At a deep well I drank from the top of my own head and forgot it there, and a wild duck hatched ducklings in it.”

“The bowl of care. Since the Zhou Li, rice porridge has been the food of the sick and the old. In Chinese medicine plain congee is given for digestive recovery, after an illness, for weak digestion, after childbirth and in fevers. Liang eats it every morning.”

“The Zhou Li (Rites of Zhou, Zhou dynasty) describes rice porridge as food for the sick and the elderly. Congee has been the bowl of care for that long.”

“Food: warm and nourishing. Soups, porridge, hot milk, oil and butter. (The text also writes mutton and a little alcohol. Ang is vegetarian and keeps his vows. He quotes it and does not follow it, and he never recommends alcohol.)”

“Food for old age. Warm, regular, enough. Soups, porridge, soft cooked vegetables, beans and lentils, eggs, dairy if it suits you, bread, rice. Many older people eat too little, and Dutch health advice stresses enough protein for older people. Many older people also feel less thirst and drink too little: a warm drink at fixed times helps. Ask the GP about vitamin D, which Dutch guidance advises extra for older people. "At my age the problem is not eating too much. It is forgetting to eat at all, because the tea is more interesting."”

“In the Netherlands. "Your Dutch neighbour will say it is like her grandmother's porridge. Of course it is. Every grandmother knows."”

“Semolina and rice porridge. Soft, warm, a little sugar, for the weak stomach and for children.”

“One line, every time. Never for babies under one year, not in tea, porridge or on a dummy. It can make babies very ill. With diabetes, honey is sugar.”

“Asida. A thick porridge shaped into a mound or a ball in a bowl, with a stew poured around it. Sources disagree on the grain, some say wheat, others sorghum or millet, and every family has its own way. In her grandmother's house asida was the food of cold mornings, of celebrations and of the weeks after a birth.”

“What the hot food is in her family. Warm porridges and asida, madida helba in the morning, soft warm stews, warm drinks, and plenty of plain water. Food in food amounts, cooked fresh, eaten warm. "Everything warm. Nothing iced. And water, always water. A mother who feeds a baby needs to drink."”