To the uninitiated amongst you (the non-British ones) this will probably look like a mug full of vomit. Well it's not. The white stuff is porridge with a drizzle of maple syrup. I know that porridge is good for you and to a person that regularly snacks on rice crackers, eats tofu and drinks soya, the sole idea of porridge is more than appealing. Yet, I keep forcing myself and every time I prepare it, I think of one thing. I think of vomit, even though, to be fair to porridge, it doesn't taste of anything at all and is certainly not stinging rancid either.
Even a vat of maple syrup makes for something as tasteless as tap water but because I am on a health-kick following a full week's binge on chocolate (hey, it was my birthday, yes, all week), it seemed like a good idea to start a new, healthy routine made up of porridge and one hour on the exercise bike, seeing that all the darn horses I could ride (or ride with) are currently broken. While Strauss's waltzers are blasting through the speakers as I am starting the day and I feel happy and uplifted and serene, I only have to turn on the stove, get the box with the reassuringly half-naked, rippling Scottish athlete in a kilt from the cupboard and... and it all goes wrong.
Perhaps it will grow on me, perhaps it's one of those acquired tastes, as people call them, even though I am always a little weary of acquired tastes. I always think that whatever is an acquired taste perhaps is not meant to be eaten at all.
