Cracked Wheat Cereal - Easy, Cheap, Delicious, Healthy!

Well, now I truly am going way back to my childhood and the roots of my culinary beginnings.  As long as I can remember, our dear mother got up earlier than anyone else in the family and made us all hot cracked wheat cereal for breakfast.  It's such a simple meal--consisting of water, cracked wheat grains, and salt cooked together to make a hot cereal or what the British call "porridge" (this was the irresistible temptation that drew Goldilocks into the Three Bears' cottage in the classic children's story)--but great foods, at their core, are nearly always simple.  I mostly took my mother's porridge for granted, but over the years it became so much a part of my gastronomic palette that I still crave it to this day--especially after a season of rich food such as Thanksgiving or Christmas.  I credit mom's cracked-wheat cereal and whole-wheat bread (both made from hand-ground whole-grain) with the excellent health my siblings and I have enjoyed all our lives.

Whole-grain porridges are and have been staple foods for millions of people for centuries.  Nearly every culture has a version made with their most abundant cereal grain (e.g. oats, maize, quinoa, rice, barley etc.).  Before breads became common porridge was the primary way humans made the grains they grew into something edible.  Before cooking pots were invented early porridges were cooked in animal skin bags and heated to a boil by dropping in hot rocks.

My mother had the children in the family grind wheat for bread by hand turned grain mill (it was one of our chores every Saturday morning).  After we had ground enough flour for 6 loaves of bread she'd loosen the plates on the hand grinder and have us make a coarser grind which she used to make the hot cereal in the mornings.  The idea is to just break the wheat grains coarsely--don't turn them into flour.  You can crack the wheat with a blender, but my favorite way is to use an Italian-made grain mill called the Marcato Marga Roller Millbecause on its widest setting it passes the wheat between rollers to make tiny "flakes".  Those flakes make a wonderfully uniform grind which makes the cereal have the consistency of the store-bought "cream of wheat" but with all the nutrients of the whole grain.

BTW if you'd like one of these handy mills (they also make hand-ground coarse flour from your whole grains) you can order one here.

Here's how to make Cracked Wheat Cereal:

• 1 cup Cracked Wheat
• 3 cups Water
• 1/2 tsp Salt (or adjust to taste)

Stir the cracked wheat into the water on the stove (pour the wheat in gradually to avoid lumping).  Then add the salt.  Bring it to a boil.  Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Serve with brown sugar, and your milk of choice (I also love it with nuts, seeds, dried fruit etc.).

There are some who have wheat sensitivities and, for them I would recommend some other type of whole-grain porridge such as oatmeal.  Skip the pop-tarts, make yourself and your family some hearty hot cereal.  You'll save money (a bowl of this costs only a few cents to make), improve your health, and maybe live to meet your great-grandchildren.