Back Mehlsuppe GSW حريره ARZ Bubuh sumsum BAN Mejsuppm BAR Gruel Catalan Griwel Welsh Vælling Danish Mehlsuppe German Gruel Spanish حریره Persian
| Type | Porridge |
|---|---|
| Main ingredients | Cereal meal or flour, water or milk |
| Variations | Congee |
Gruel is a food consisting of some type of cereal—such as ground oats, wheat, rye, or rice—heated or boiled in water or milk. It is a thinner version of porridge that may be more often drunk rather than eaten. Historically, gruel has been a staple of the Western diet, especially for peasants. Gruel may also be made from millet, hemp, barley, or, in hard times, from chestnut flour or even the less-bitter acorns of some oaks. Gruel has historically been associated with feeding the sick[1] and recently weaned children.
Gruel is also a colloquial expression for any watery food of unknown character, e.g., pea soup.[2][3] Gruel has often been associated with poverty, with negative associations attached to the term in popular culture, as in the Charles Dickens novels Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol.
- ^ A gruel of cornmeal, soaked and cooking in a double-boiler, was recommended for typhus patients in The American Journal of Nursing 14.4 (January 1914) p. 296.
- ^ The word soup is related to sop, the slice of bread which was soaked in broth or thin gruel.
- ^ Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, Anthea Bell, tr. The History of Food, revised ed. 2009, p. 161.