All about the Golden Spurtle

Next Saturday we’re travelling north to complete in the 29th annual World Porridge Making Championships, the Golden Spurtle, in the Highland village of Carrbridge. On 8th October, thirty cooks from around the world will be competing to make the best porridge using only three ingredients – oatmeal, water and salt. The oatmeal is old-fashioned: only pinhead, coarse, medium or fine oatmeal is allowed. None of this microwave nonsense either.

Fitness fuel for Tracy and for Coco the pug too!

To add to the fun, there’s a specialty porridge prize as well. This is a separate creative round, where oatmeal can be combined with any ingredients. The competition is judged by chef Neil Mugg (ex-Gleneagles), Colin Bussey, (consultant chef at Turnberry Hotel) and Kirsten Gilmour (of The Mountain Cafe Cairngorms fame) and farmer Richard Jones. The coveted Golden Spurtle is taken seriously, and held in high esteem.

I’m delighted to be competing, and have been practising my stovetop technique. The important thing is to stir clockwise to keep the devil out, apparently. Left-handed porridge making has historically been frowned upon - there is as much tradition around porridge as another oat-based Scottish dish, haggis. Apparently in the olden days, many homes had a porridge drawer in the kitchen table, a dedicated drawer that porridge was poured in to set and then sliced up for later consumption – perhaps this is where flapjacks originated. Perhaps not, but it makes a good story...

There’s something poetic about stirring porridge and watching it thicken up, then the joy of eating it. It’s sustaining and an excellent source of energy if you have a busy lifestyle. Also it can help lower cholesterol. And it’s cheap!

My entry is a ‘Fitness studio lunch’ for two – a regular meal for me and my Personal Training assistant, Coco the fitness pug. Yes, porridge is health food for dogs too. Coco gets a small portion of cooled porridge for her lunch (with a dried sprat on top), from my porridge pot. Whilst I enjoy my specialty pudding-like porridge with cinnamon, hemp seeds and cranberries floated on coconut milk. Perfect for energy, porridge truly is life.

You can find all the competition information plus many speciality porridge recipes at www.goldenspurtle.com.
This article originally published in October 2022 Bite Magazine.