Thursday, May 28, 2009

Idea 44 - Oats: The Inside Story

It's all too easy to take things for granted, and not just oats. But oat appreciation is something I hold very dear, and while it may not be the drippingly sexiest subject on Earth, I'm betting that there are a lot of closet oaties out there who would welcome this book like a molting nighthawk welcomes a swarm of golden Aphids:

It's thought that early homo habilis, one of our simple-minded ancestors, were the first to partake of the oaten bounty in any significant quantity. And while oat bran was prized by foraging females for its satiating prowess, it was most often mashed into a thick paste and forced deep into the tracheas of weaker clan members in order to suffocate them, thus thinning the man-herd.

...

When Lord Ludvig Von Quartermaine received the first shipment of oats from dusky Persia, he believed it to be a dried clotting agent for seeping war wounds. It was the well-traveled Prime Minister Chauncelory who educated the royals on the process of baking the oats, separating the chaff, then grinding, watering, and boiling the meal into a palatable beige mess. Of course, the State Vicar denounced the process as witchery, and both Chauncelory and the entirety of Persia were burned to embers.

I'm not just in this whole book deal thing for the money, although that's about 95% of it. But if I can teach just one person to appreciate what we have in the noble oat, while concurrently being paid a revoltingly large sum for harnessing my idea-talent, then it will all have been nearly worthwhile.

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