I respect your oatmeal respect and expertise but I think parts of your post are close-minded about certain things. “True roots” is nothing—if you’re thinking really old tradition, why is a different new world fruit (blueberries) in there at all? Even if you’re not restricting yourself to that, why should coconut in oatmeal be fine but not guava? That makes me think it’s just about what tastes good and not really about tradition.
(I haven’t tried guava in oatmeal either, but guavas are great, a really unique flavor, I recommend trying it if you ever get the chance!)
I think it’s odd and overgeneralizing to assert that people don’t like oatmeal because of rationalizations about their diet. In my experience, people often innately dislike widely-popular sensations or experiences for no particular reason—sensory sensitivities or just unusual preferences or etc.
On that front I also dislike the texture of normally-cooked oatmeal—I think I never especially liked it but then I did long trail crews as a teenager where oatmeal was the only breakfast for weeks straight, and I really haven’t wanted to eat it since—but overnight oats (oats mixed with liquid and sat in the fridge overnight, not cooked—you could warm it up til it’s hot but not to the boiling point) or those packets of instant oats mixed with boiling water (but not otherwise cooked/microwaved after that) both have a soft but much-less-glorpy consistency, so I’ll happily eat them for breakfast sometimes. Recommend them to anyone looking for an oatmeal experience but wishing the texture were a little different.
I respect your oatmeal respect and expertise but I think parts of your post are close-minded about certain things. “True roots” is nothing—if you’re thinking really old tradition, why is a different new world fruit (blueberries) in there at all? Even if you’re not restricting yourself to that, why should coconut in oatmeal be fine but not guava? That makes me think it’s just about what tastes good and not really about tradition.
(I haven’t tried guava in oatmeal either, but guavas are great, a really unique flavor, I recommend trying it if you ever get the chance!)
I think it’s odd and overgeneralizing to assert that people don’t like oatmeal because of rationalizations about their diet. In my experience, people often innately dislike widely-popular sensations or experiences for no particular reason—sensory sensitivities or just unusual preferences or etc.
On that front I also dislike the texture of normally-cooked oatmeal—I think I never especially liked it but then I did long trail crews as a teenager where oatmeal was the only breakfast for weeks straight, and I really haven’t wanted to eat it since—but overnight oats (oats mixed with liquid and sat in the fridge overnight, not cooked—you could warm it up til it’s hot but not to the boiling point) or those packets of instant oats mixed with boiling water (but not otherwise cooked/microwaved after that) both have a soft but much-less-glorpy consistency, so I’ll happily eat them for breakfast sometimes. Recommend them to anyone looking for an oatmeal experience but wishing the texture were a little different.