Scots Brose

The 1970s saw the revival of a routine which had more or less sunk into oblivion with the demise of oatmeal as the core of the Scots peasant diet. The simple method of making brose by pouring water or milk onto oatmeal in a bowl (a convenience food of the past) had now reappeared in breakfast cereal packagery as ‘muesli’.

Why did Scotland fail to produce a campaigning Bircher-Benner with a clinic in the Highlands instead of Zurich? Why did Scots brose not take off as the panacea for urban health problems, returning to its position as a basic item of diet as it was in the healthier lifestyle of our rural ancestors? It’s a classic convenience food: the answer to the haven’t-got-time-to-cook problem.