Steel-cut oatmeal: Slow satisfaction

Perhaps it

is

the packaging, John McCann's steel-cut Irish Oatmeal, unrepentently retro in that black-and-white, bemedaled tuxedo of a tin, as sturdy - and weighty - as a quart of old-time wood putty.

Philosophically, of course, it presents a dilemma: The carbon footprint of hauling oats a few thousand food miles from green County Kildare cannot, one assumes, be very dainty.

But then again, there is so much that can (and shortly will) be said in its favor, not only nutritionally, for sure, but the fact that no animals were harmed in its testing or manufacture: These oats are as whole-food and wholesome as a tinned whole food can be.

They are more costly, no question, than Quaker Oats, my childhood stalwart. They take a lot longer to fix - a full 30 minutes of bubbling away on the stove top, though you are not required to stand there watching the pot, and there are shortcuts; soaking them overnight, for one.

And while a strict locavore may lament their gross violation of the 100-mile-diet rule, there is this local connection still broadcast on the face of the can: They were awarded the gold medal in Group IV at the international exhibition of the centennial in Philadelphia, Sept. 27, 1876. (Precisely what Group IV involved is unclear, though a little later the oats won a prize in Chicago for "uniformity of granulation.")

Am I fond of these oats? Oh, more than that. I am proud of them, holding their ground, staying the course, letting me have a hand in their flowering, stirring away, like spinning a prayer wheel (I imagine), or cranking one of those stove-top Whirley Pop popcorn poppers.

They are a reminder - or maybe a rejoinder - in a world where we're distracted by instant messaging and distanced from breakfast by quickie envelopes of powdered oatmeal that there is certain satisfaction not only in time-saving, but in time-taking.

Something is gained in simmering down a pot of tomato gravy, baking beans overnight in a crock, boiling the oatmeal until it thickens. That time is encoded - as in barrel-aging, or hanging beef, or cheese-cellaring. And not just in the final product, but in the atmospherics of the preparation: The roasty fragrance of those oats cooking curls through the kitchen, even the thin steam taking on the fullness of smoke.

In the bowl, finally, the oatmeal is not gluey and loose, not pastey and themeless. The oats mound up, the grains tender but still distinct, popping to the chew like kernels of corn or, well, salmon roe would be a stretch.

That texture does not just happen. The Irish oats are said to ripen more slowly, the better to suckle longer at the bosom of the old sod - to become fuller and plumper. They are not flaked or steamed or rolled. Instead they are only hulled, and the resulting groat, the inner sanctum of the kernel (the starchy endosperm, the vitamin- and iron-rich germ, and the bran of soluble fiber fame), is sliced in two or three pieces by spinning steel cutters.

So is it any wonder that a feed so unmitigated, unpummeled and unpuffed requires patience and a steady fire to unlock? Is it any wonder, as well, that such a drab commodity required a marketing boost to make the interspecies leap from equine to human, a boost provided by the original Quaker Oats purveyors who recast the notorious barnyard grain in the late 1800s as "a delicacy for the epicure?"

It was the wave of immigrants steaming in from Ireland, shortly before that, that had given oatmeal its first mass audience in America. And while the Quaker oats would become a children's porridge and an instant microwaveable breakfast (Quaker is now owned by Pepsico, which bought it to pick up its Gatorade unit), it is endearing, nonetheless, that the grown-up, slow-cooking Irish brand endures.

That it is a natural Lipitor of sorts, that in its unfortified state it is full of goodness, that it is aromatic and satisfyingly chewy beneath toasted walnuts and maple syrup are all bonuses.

It is that soldier of a tin - defiant and steady on the line - that gets me every time.