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Horse Chow

by Donald Newlove

Few chefs enjoy cooking for themselves, or so it's said. For those who would like true simplicity in preparing breakfast, may I suggest a dish that makes boiled oatmeal or even cornflakes tiring and overly sophisticated with their milk and sweeteners. My favorite breakfast when I'm not in Paris is a delicacy called horse chow.

Unless you have read Helen Nearing's Simple Food for the Good Life you likely haven't heard of horse chow. Helen, who lived deep into her nineties, did not like cooking. She made no meal that took more than ten minutes. She was a woodstove woman and favored simple, unprocessed food and lots of raw chewing. On such cell-building wholesome power food she kept her husband Scott alive past the century mark.

To Helen cooking was work. Up in Maine she's rather be reading, playing music, gardening, swimming, or skiing. She thought cooking not worthwhile and said that any meal that takes longer to fix than to eat is too much fuss. In fact, food too fussed over could tempt her into overeating and leave her fat. She says forget sweeteners and seasonings, those indulgences. And when making bread she skips the yeast-and the baking. Even more weird, she and Scott never drink beverages during a meal and a long glass of water sometimes lasts them a week.

So let's get down to the bare bones of horse chow. Here is the simple version, although I usually quadruple the whole business and while it lasts keep it in a big covered can, especially when I'm summering amid Cape Cod cedars and volcanic with writing projects that can't wait for a dainty breakfast. Helen says to mix four cups of old-fashioned oats, a half-cup of raisins, some good olive oil, salt and the juice of a lemon. Mix and eat raw. As I say, I usually make two weeks worth, with two pounds of steel-cut oats from the health food store, a box of fat California raisins, lots of extra virgin olive oil (to aid the chewing), salt to taste, and the juice of three or four fresh-squeezed lemons (you can't put too much juice into this dish). I mix it in a big bowl before packing it into an aluminum flour canister kept ready on the counter.

Avoid peaches and cherries and bananas and yogurt or soy milk or any other squish-maker on this breakfast since these take from the joy of chewing raw oats flavored with fruity greengold olive oil, pure bright salt and toothy muscat raisins. Nor will the true horse chow fancier add walnuts or honey or syrup to distract from the basic whole-foods experience which has you bolting from your stall each morning and galloping to the table. I find that guests are quickly won over and prefer this to any boxed and hydrogenated food. There's something about mashing oats in your mouth with a faintly peppery olive oil and plump golden seedless raisins and bracing sea-salt and life-giving lemon pulp that lifts and faces you toward whatever the day may bring. Ah, such a breakfast builds a roaring fire in the breast and leaves girded for battle you and the horse you came in on.