Grains, usefully, expand when placed in water: something the travellers and the poor of the world have known for millennia. Gruel takes this to an extreme. How far can you stretch the last bit of oatmeal in the house before it loses solidity, loses even a glue-like consistency, and drips sadly from the spoon like a drab, tasteless, viscous blob?

I found myself testing those limits one month, when the work hours had been far fewer than expected and rent had eaten up almost all of what remained. Unlike true gruel, I actually did have a meat product to add to the pot: for I had broken down and spent most of my remaining money on a small, whole chicken to add to the leftover rice and the ultracheap pasta.

Three weeks I stared at that chicken. Herbs and spices and soy sauce go a long, long way. Breast sliced up one way. Wings broiled another. Drumsticks, thighs, and especially the bones boiled into a stock that lasted and lasted ... and lasted ... soup stretched out and out and out until it had little more than a nodding acquaintance with the original chicken, the original carrots and single scrounged onion long gone.

Add some grains of rice to give it some minimal texture: and voila!

A few crumbs of bacon, some clams, or shrimp, or even a vegetable or two would have made all the difference in the world. Maple syrup or a few berries could easily have turned it into a delicacy. Even milk would have added flavour. There are parts of the world that regularly use any and all of these to create signature dishes around a central mixture of what is essentially water mixed with a grain. But just then, I couldn't afford it.

Came the next paycheque, and finally a small break. Enough, just, to do a small grocery run after paying the crucial bills. But it was a very, very long time before I could look either rice or chicken in the face again.

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