But in South Britain the oatmeal of the Scottish peasantry--the national food--is looked upon with as much prejudice, and those who live upon it with as much pity, as the black bread-eaters of Germany and Sweden, or the potato-diggers of Ireland. But the health and strength of the Scottish peasantry, who live entirely upon oatmeal, is proverbial. On this subject, in speaking of the Scottish ploughmen, where the bothy system is practised--that is, where the single men all live together in a room or bothy provided for them, which serves them both for sleeping and cooking---Mr Stephens has the following characteristic passage:--
"The oatmeal is usually cooked in one way, as _brose_, as it is called, which is a different sort of pottage to porridge. A pot of water is put on the fire to boil, a task which the men take in turns; a handful or two of oatmeal is taken out of the small chest with which each man provides himself, and put into a wooden bowl, which also is the ploughman's property; and on a hollow being made in the meal, and sprinkled with salt, the boiling water is poured over the meal, and the mixture receiving a little stirring with a horn spoon, and the allowance of milk poured over it, the brose is ready to be eaten; and as every man makes his own brose, and knows his own appetite, he makes just as much brose as he can consume. The bowl is scraped clean with the spoon, and the spoon licked clean with the tongue, and the dish is then placed in the meal-chest for a similar purpose on the succeeding occasion. The fare is simple, and is as simply made; but it must be wholesome, and capable of supplying the loss of substance occasioned by hard labour; for _I believe that no class of men can endure more bodily fatigue, for ten hours every day, than those ploughmen of Scotland who subsist on this brose thrice a-day_."--(Vol. ii. p. 384.)
The quantity of oatmeal allowed to the ploughman--_as his sole food_--is two pecks, or 17-1/2 lbs. in a week, exactly 2-1/2 lbs. a-day--or 3/4 lb. for each meal--and yet it often happens that a hard-worked ploughman cannot consume the whole of this allowance. Speaking again of oatmeal _porridge_, Mr Stephens says, "there are few more wholesome meals than oatmeal porridge, or upon which a harder day's work can be wrought. Children of all ranks in Scotland are brought up on this diet, verifying the line of Burns,