Oat-standing: 4 Canadians in the running for world porridge prize

Thirty minutes, two burners, oats, water and salt.

That's the essence of the World Porridge Making Championship, which takes placein the small village of Carrbridge, Scotland next weekend.

No Canadian participantswere to be found at last year's competition, but a CBC documentary about the event led to a surge of Canadian entries for the 2019championship.

Four of the 30 contestants come from Canada this year; two from Ontario and two from Alberta.

• At the World Porridge Championships, quick-cooking oats need not apply
• Customers sidling up to porridge bar at St. John's market

One of them is Barbra McCaffrey, a healthcare consultantwho heard the Doc Project episode while driving around Edmonton last summer.

"I immediately had three thoughts: one, that sounds like fun, two, I've never been to Scotland, and three, I can make porridge!" she said Friday in an interview with CBC's Radio Active.

She has since learned making perfect porridge is more complicated than she thought.

For more than a year, McCaffrey has been researching past winners, running science experiments in her kitchen and asking friends and coworkers to sample her creations.

She didn't want to stand out as an amateur in a field that includes professional chefs.

"I'm going for fun, but I didn't want to go there without being prepared," she said.

How the competitionworks

Each competitor brings their own porridge pan and spurtle, which is a wooden stirring tool that traditionally resembles the Scottish thistle.

McCaffrey will be bringing a lucky maple spurtle made by her father for the competition.

Judgesconsidertaste, consistency, colour and the competitors'hygiene during production.

The cook who produces thebest traditional porridge winsthe Golden Spurtletrophy, but a second award goes to the bestspecialty porridge. This is where competitors' creativity comes out, as they mix their traditional porridge with ingredients of their own choosing.

Past winners of the specialty prize have created a Scottish tapas platter, sticky toffee porridge, Nordic porridge with cloudberries, and pinhead risotto with lemon, thyme and parmesan.

Calgary's Catherine Caldwell won the specialty category in 2010 with her Canadian cran-apple crunch.

McCaffrey'stop-secretrecipe featurestraditional porridge (made from ancient grain organic steel-cut Alberta oats) topped with vanilla custard and a crumble of maple syrup-candied almonds and Saskatoon berries.

The competition takes place Saturday, Oct. 12.