Ginger Millet Porridge and Weightlessness

Equatorial Guinean Breakfast

GINGER MILLET PORRIDGE

INGREDIENTS

1 cup millet flour
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon grated ginger (or ¼ teaspoon ginger powder)
1⅓ cups water
1⅓ cups milk
¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Makes 3 bowls. Takes 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add millet flour, sugar, and ginger to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Gradually add water. Stir with fork until well blended. Pour mixture into pot. Cook at medium heat. Gradually add in milk. Stir constantly to avoid lumps and to keep the porridge from sticking to sides of the pot. Cook for 10 minutes or until bubbles form and porridge thickens. Stir constantly with whisk.. Garnish with cinnamon.

TIDBITS

1) Ginger millet porridge is enormously popular wherever gravity exists, present-day Earth, for example.

2) Ginger millet porridge is not popular in space. Without gravity the porridge will simply not stay in the bowl. The authorities at the International Space Station fired their traditionally trained waters. They spent $1.3 billion dollars retraining waiters to carry bowls in weightless conditions without spilling porridge. There is, of course, gravity on Earth. So to simulate conditions of outer space, the waiters had to carry bowls of porridge while a transport plane nose dived. This was a frustrating experience for all involved. But after several thousand nose dives a staff of four waiters emerged who could serve porridge in weightless conditions.

3) Needless to say.

4) It was needless to say, so I didn’t say it.

5) Anyway, the waiters served porridge to the people on the space station. Without spilling! Hurrah!
But when the diners stirred their meal or raised their spoon to their mouth, ginger millet porridge went everywhere.

6) Some point to the $1.3 billion spent on the waiters as an example of government waste. Perhaps so, but that’s just water under the bridge or in this case, ginger millet in the ventilating system.

Chef Paul