Pronto Cornmeal Cinnamon Porridge

My husband brought this home with him recently, just on a lark. I don't know what possessed him to pick this up, especially because he said it was specifically for me and I've never indicated any love for porridge, or even cinnamon for that matter. I'm not very creative when it comes to breakfasts, especially every day. I have cold cereal with milk, and that's usually it. Mostly because I wake up quite ravenous and just want to eat as quickly as possible. No time for all that frying and toasting, filling things up to lines, waiting three minutes for something to cool down...and that's why I only got around to trying this porridge as an afternoon snack.

I don't know much about Jamaican convenience food, I have no clue what sort of candy or junk is produced there! I'm curious to know more, even if my experience with this porridge was...not so great. This powdery substance was going to take 3 minutes to 'cook' after pouring boiling water up to a fill line. Certainly convenient, and quite befitting of the brand name Pronto. Not much else they can make under that name, huh? Instant noodles, self-heating coffee cans, minute rice...Anyway, I poured in the boiling water and waited.

Aw jeez, it looks like one of those lotus pods so popularly photoshopped on to otherwise pleasant things. Blergh, not looking forward to this one bit. It smells okay at least-- like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or an otherwise sweet, powdered cinnamon product.

It tastes pretty horrible. As you can see it is lumpy. I don't know if that has to do with the way I prepared it (added hot water, stirred, waited) or if that is just the nature of cornmeal porridge. Inside the lumps were drier clods of sweet cinnamon flavor and powder. The rest of it was a slurry of cinnamon sugar paste, that at least technically provides sustenance. I definitely felt like I was not only at a hospital, but I was at a hospital that had ran out of all food except for powdered baby formula. Fact is, the taste itself isn't really the issue, it tasted a lot like any cinnamon cereal...it was the texture. It had one of the more gruesome textures I've ever forced down... the powdery lumps covered in applesauce-smooth goo. I don't think I'd ever eat this, or any other cornmeal porridge again. It sort of reminded me of Cream o' Wheat, except with added lumps where Cream o' Wheat is unrelentingly smooth slop. I don't like either of them, give me a cereal crunch any day of the week.

Maybe porridge just isn't for me. This one is too lumpy, this one is too smooth, and this one is being eaten by bears. You know how it goes!