Serving Gruel To Be Kind

We often have great recommendations for what to have for lunch in your busy working day, and today's offering is: a free bowl of gruel at the Royal Society of Chemistry. The thin oatmeal, water and milk will be offered to passers-by in pewter dishes, served by Beadle Mr Bumble at the RSC's offices in glossy PIccadilly as part of the RSC's theme of food for 2009. This grey, sloppy, tasteless giveaway also comes the day before Oliver! opens tomorrow in the West End with Rowan Atkinson in a lead role.

Prepared by French chef with the fabulous name Fabian Aid in the Royal Society of Chemistry's kitchen (not one of the laboratories we like to imagine they have in the attic), the gruel will be slopped out as precursor to the RSC's report "The Vital Ingredient: chemical science and engineering for sustainable food" that will be launched at the House of Commons next week. We have learned from our horrified Christmas reading of The Workhouse Cookbook that gruel is far from palatable, not really filling and can be utterly demoralising when it is the only foodstuff served for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day, every day. As stunts go, it's refreshing, though not mouth-watering to be repulsed into paying attention, rather than being wooed for once.

Note: Although many will be tempted to try it, it has been said that anyone asking for more and attempting to re-enact that famous scene in Oliver Twist will be turned away empty-handed.