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[CellarDweller]

Gruel is a type of food consisting of some type of cereal—oat, wheat or rye flour, or rice—boiled in water or milk. It is a thinner version of porridge that may be more often drunk than eaten and may not need to be cooked. Historically, gruel—often made from millet, hemp or barley, or, in hard times, from chestnut flour or even the less tannic acorns of some oaks—has been a staple of the Western diet, especially for peasants.

The importance of gruel as a form of sustenance is especially noted for invalids and for recently weaned children. Hot malted milk is a form of gruel, although manufacturers like Ovomaltine and Horlicks avoid calling it gruel, due to the negative associations attached to the word through popular culture like Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruel