Ian Bishop is the new World Porridge Making Champion, taking the title at the fifteenth attempt. In fact, he has competed in every one of the championships held so far and has slowly progressed from lumpy porridge maker to world champion.
Mr Bishop was presented with the Golden Spurtle by by Miss Scotland, Stephanie Willemse. Sounds very Scottish!
Contestants could only use three ingredients to make their porridge, traditional oatmeal, salt and water. Ian Bishop put his success down to the water he used, which came from a from a bore hole 100ft into an underground river near his home in Carrbridge, Strathspey. Mmm.
There was also a Specialty Porridge section where contestants could use whatever ingredients they liked, and this was won by a professional Dutch chef. His winning porridge included marzipan, home-made ice cream and 18 year old Glenfidditch whiskey! That’ll warm you up in the mornings!!
Did you know?
Tradition: Porridge should only be stirred in a clockwise direction with the right hand to avoid invoking the devil.
Urban Legend: Porridge should only be referred to as ‘they’ and should only be eaten while you are standing up.
Worst Porridge: I always remember a school camping trip where the teachers took it in turns to make the morning porridge, one of whom was rather heavy-handed with the salt, proclaiming ‘this is the Welsh way, eat up!’. It was like drinking sea water, I can still taste it! Remarkably, and purely coincidentally of course, the number of pupils reporting ‘sick’ at breakfast time on certain mornings reached epidemic proportions and caused concern about some sort of plague-like bacterial virus sweeping through the camp.
Our cause was helped somewhat by the fact that several of the teachers also reported feeling ‘too ill’ to eat breakfast those same mornings. Sad to say, the teacher concerned never got the message.