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Gruel is a type of food consisting of some type of cereal—oat, wheat or rye flour, or rice—boiled in water or milk. It is a thinner version of porridge that may be more often drunk than eaten and may not need to be cooked. Historically, gruel has been a staple of the Western diet, especially for peasants. Gruel is often made from millet, hemp, barley or, in hard times, from chestnut flour or even the less tannic acorns of some oaks. The importance of gruel as a form of sustenance is especially noted for invalids〔A gruel of cornmeal, soaked and cooking in a double-boiler, was recommended for typhus patients in ''The American Journal of Nursing'' 14.4 (January 1914) p. 296.〕 and for recently weaned children. Hot malted milk is a form of gruel, although the manufacturers of such products as Ovaltine and Horlicks avoid calling it gruel, owing to the negative associations attached to the word in popular culture, as in Charles Dickens's novel ''Oliver Twist''. From a literary, bourgeois, or modern point of view, gruel has often been associated with poverty. ''Gruel'' is also a colloquial expression for any watery or liquidy food of unknown character, e.g., pea soup; the word ''soup'' itself being derived from ''sop'' – the slice of bread which was soaked in broth or thin gruel.〔Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, Anthea Bell, tr. ''The History of Food'', revised ed. 2009, p. 161.〕 ==History== Gruel was the staple food of the ancient Greeks, for whom roasted meats were the extraordinary feast that followed sacrifice, even among heroes, and "in practice bread was a luxury eaten only in towns". Roman plebeians "ate the staple gruel of classical times, supplemented by oil, the humbler vegetables and salt fish",〔Toussaint-Samat 2009, p. 93.〕 for gruel could be prepared without access to the communal ovens in which bread was baked. In the Middle Ages the peasant could avoid the tithe exacted, usually in kind, for grain ground by the miller of the landowner's mill by roasting the grains to make them digestible, and grinding small portions in a mortar at home. In lieu of cooking the resulting paste on the hearthstone, it could be simmered in a cauldron with water or, luxuriously, with milk. In the Western Hemisphere, maize gruels were once one of the main food sources for many Mesoamerican peoples, such as the Maya and Aztecs. ' was a preparation of ground maize that was often flavored with chili and salt. It could be consumed or drunk as an important calorie source and as a thirst quencher. Rice gruels eaten throughout Asia are normally referred to as congee from the Tamil word for the food. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gruel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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