Even most of the field crops, such as barley, oats, and potatoes, are grown for animal feed.

Many people enjoy the intestines cooked in a nice gravy served over maize meal porridge.

In western Africa, maize porridge is often the first solid food given to young children.

Grits is a porridge of native American origin made from corn (maize) which is popular in the South.

Stories like The Magic Porridge Pot, where you had a pot where if you knew the magic words, this pot would just make as much food as you liked, without you having to do any work, provided you could remember the other magic word to stop it making porridge.

Porridge, gruel and later, bread, became the basic food staple that made up the majority of calorie intake for most of the population.

The bad news is that the other candidates allegedly being considered all current or mainly former heads of government are as inspiring as cold porridge.

Nshima, the stodgy porridge like substance cooked out of maize meal, has divided families and triggered food riots in Zambia at one time or other.

Ukraine Try Veggie Prairie Girl Gerda s version of the sweet wheat porridge kutia, or challenge yourself with the twelve dish Christmas Eve supper described by Yasmin Coles on Friends Eat.

In Bangladesh, where the rate of malnutrition is among the highest in the world, an affordable vitamin and mineral supplement is now available that can be added to porridge and soup.

In China and other east Asian countries, homemade baby food remains common, and babies are started on rice porridge called xifan, then move on to mashed fruits, soft vegetables, tofu and fish.

This was first demonstrated in the 1960 s, when Guatemalan researchers gave children in two randomly selected villages a nutritious porridge each day, and a much less nutritious fruit drink to children in two other villages.

This policy can be very affordable providing porridge in Guatemala cost just 23.25 per child per year, while the monetary value of the increase in the children s future wages is between two and four times higher.