October 11, 2009

On Sunday 11th October, the celebration of a traditional Scottish dish will cause a stir from Chicago to Blantyre and from London to Loch Awe as enthusiasts arm themselves with oats and spurtles in preparation for the first World Porridge Day.

The event, supporting the Dalmally-based charity Mary’s Meals, has been established by the organisers of the 16th World Porridge Making Championship. The date was chosen to tie in with the competition, to be held on the same day in Carrbridge in the Highlands.

And while supporters from around the world are getting involved, people in Argyll are taking a lead in the celebrations, with events planned across the region.

The scent of oatmeal looks set to waft from the Royal National Mod in Oban (where porridge and flapjacks wereserved to competitors at the Church Centre on Glencruitten Road today (Saturday 10th October) to Edinburgh’s corridors of power, where MSP, Jamie McGrigor has tabled a motion in support of his local charity.

Girl Guides in Loch Awe have been exploring the benefits of porridge for the skin, making scented oatmeal bath bombs (bath mines even, if you look at the size of their potent creations).

Craig Lodge Retreat Centre in Dalmally is hosting a Big Porridge Breakfast on Sunday 11th October – and staff at Mary’s Meals offices in Dalmally have already enjoyed flapjacks at work on Friday 9th October.

To many in the UK, porridge is a hearty breakfast, but to the children who receive Likuni Phala (a nutrient rich maize-based porridge) from Mary’s Meals, it is a powerful incentive to go school, with the reassurance that they will get something nutritious to eat each day.

Scott Bruce, Carrbridge Community Council chairman, says: ‘We hope that, whether at home or abroad, porridge fans across the globe will sit down and enjoy a hearty bowl of porridge while at the same time help in raising money for a worthwhile cause’.

Outside of Argyll, World Porridge Day events are planned in the United States, France, Malawi, Bosnia and Sweden. In Scotland, students at St Andrews University will enjoy a late porridge breakfast on Monday 12th October, while office workers in Glasgow have tucked in to flapjacks on Friday 9th October, in synchronisation with the staff at Mary’s Meals.

• In Malawi, Mary’s Meals feeds around 320,000 children, over 10% of the primary school population.
• The Likuni Phala (porridge) that Mary’s Meals provides in Malawi is a porridge designed by nutritionists, consisting of maize flour and ground soy beans, milk powder, vitamins, minerals and a small amount of sugar -  key elements of a balanced diet. It costs Mary’s Meals just £6.15 to feed a child in Malawi for a year.

For further information and to make a donation to the, internationally significant Argyll charity, Mary’s Meals, contact Louisa MacLennan:

• by email at:  louisa.mclennan@marysmeals.org
• by phone at: 01838 200605

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