# groats / kasha



## Fredziu

Hello everyone,

Do you use the word 'groats' or 'kasha' when you're talking about a dish made from groats? 

Does it sound natural if I say something like this?

_We often have some meat and *groats *for dinner. / We often have some meat and *kasha *for dinner.
_


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## lingobingo

I don’t think many people in the UK are aware of it yet, but personally I’m a big fan of *kasha* – roasted buckwheat. In fact, I happened to see it in one of the major supermarkets here only today, but in Polish-language packaging. (I didn’t buy it because I’ve already got lots in the cupboard!)

The old word *groats* is making something of a comeback here because of all the recent interest in veganism (you can buy oat groats in health stores), but I think historically it had connotations of poverty. There was also once a British coin called a groat.


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## kentix

It never comes up where I live among the people I know so either one would be unusual.


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## Uncle Jack

I have never heard of kasha and the only groats I know are the old coin. However, if someone said "roasted buckwheat" I would instantly have at least some idea of what was meant, even though I don't recall ever having had such a dish.


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## The Newt

"Kasha" is familiar as a food item to many people in some parts of the US; the word "groats" is much less common. You might refer to "groats" in a discussion of commercial food processing, but not usually in the context of something one eats a plate of.


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## Hermione Golightly

'Roasted buckwheat' sounds more familiar than the two you mention, especially 'groats' which sounds like horse food. I don't know exactly what any are.


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## Myridon

I don't know what any of those are.  Buckwheat is a kind of pancake (and one of The Little Rascals).


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## dojibear

I've seen kasha in health food stores in recent years. 

It is not a common food item in the US. Neither are groats.


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## AnythingGoes

I first ate kasha when I visited Poland and the Soviet Union as a boy. It became a staple among many of my friends in the Seventies and I ate it regularly in those days. The last time I had it was at a Russian cousin's house in southern California a couple of years ago.

Buckwheat is a grain (culinarily but not botanically) from which you can make delicious pancakes.


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## The Newt

In the New York City area and a few other areas with a substantial Jewish population people will have heard of kasha varnishkes.


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## AnythingGoes

The Newt said:


> In the New York City area and a few other areas with a substantial Jewish population people will have heard of kasha varnishkes.


I'd forgotten about that. My grandmother used to make it for us from time to time.


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## lingobingo

This is what I mean by kasha: buckwheat


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## Fredziu

lingobingo said:


> This is what I mean by kasha: buckwheat



Does it mean that if I use the word kasha, it will be understood as buckwheat kasha? What about other kinds of kasha made with barley groats or millet groats or wheat groats or another kind of groats? 
In Wikipidia it says: "Groats of many cereals are the basis of _kasha_, a porridge-like staple meal of Eastern Europe and Eurasia."


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## entangledbank

Will it be understood as . . .? No, basically the word 'kasha' won't be understood at all. I've heard of it and was vaguely aware it was something like buckwheat, but I doubt I've ever seen it. If you speak of kasha you'll need to explain what it is to your hearer.


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## Fredziu

entangledbank said:


> Will it be understood as . . .? No, basically the word 'kasha' won't be understood at all. I've heard of it and was vaguely aware it was something like buckwheat, but I doubt I've ever seen it. If you speak of kasha you'll need to explain what it is to your hearer.



While kasha may not be a common food in English-speaking countries, everyone in Poland will understand straightaway what you mean if you say 'kasha' .

Anyway, I wanted to make sure what word I should use to call a dish made from groats, and from what I understand the word 'kasha' should be used in this meaning, because groats are just the main ingredient used to prepare this dish.

Thank you all very much for your help!


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## lingobingo

Fredziu said:


> Does it mean that if I use the word kasha, it will be understood as buckwheat kasha? What about other kinds of kasha made with barley groats or millet groats or wheat groats or another kind of groats?
> In Wikipidia it says: "Groats of many cereals are the basis of _kasha_, a porridge-like staple meal of Eastern Europe and Eurasia."


What I said was that buckwheat, as in that picture, is what I (personally) mean by *kasha* — that’s the version I eat. It seems I’m unusual in even knowing the word, but there are lots of Polish shops (and, of course, Polish people) in Greater London these days, so I expect it will become better known. The main Polish brand found here calls both buckwheat and pearl barley groats Kasza, but as yet the packaging text is not in English. If you need to use either word (kasha or groats), I don’t see a problem. If people want to know what you mean, all they need to do is a quick Google search!


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## Fredziu

lingobingo said:


> If you need to use either word (kasha or groats), I don’t see a problem.



Do you mean to say, lingobingo, that if I've got cooked "kasza" on a plate, ready to be eaten, I can call it either 'kasha' or 'groats' without any difference?


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## AnythingGoes

Fredziu said:


> Do you mean to say, lingobingo, that if I've got cooked "kasza" on a plate, ready to be eaten, I can call it either 'kasha' or 'groats' without any difference?


I would only call it _kasha_ (using the English spelling rather than the Polish).


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## lingobingo

Fredziu said:


> Do you mean to say, lingobingo, that if I've got cooked "kasza" on a plate, ready to be eaten, I can call it either 'kasha' or 'groats' without any difference?


That’s not quite what I meant, but it’s probably true. If this link works for you, it shows some of the products available here and what they’re called: buckwheat groats - Google Search


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## Ivan_I

Groats means semolina, millet, buckwheat, wheat and others.


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## velisarius

Fredziu said:


> Do you mean to say, lingobingo, that if I've got cooked "kasza" on a plate, ready to be eaten, I can call it either 'kasha' or 'groats' without any difference?


I wonder how many native speakers even know what groats are?

 I guess it's  a regional thing; we didn't use the word in my family. I learned about _kasha_ from an Ukrainian friend, but I only know of the old coins they used to call "groats". I'd call _kasha_ "buckwheat".


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## Packard

The Newt said:


> In the New York City area and a few other areas with a substantial Jewish population people will have heard of kasha varnishkes.


That's what Grandma used to make, with bow-tie like noodles.  I can almost taste it now.  A nice alternative to a side of baked potatoes.


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## london calling

Wikipedia:
*Groats*_ (or in some cases, "berries") are the hulled kernels of various cereal grains, such as oat, wheat, rye, and barley. Groats are whole grains that include the cereal germ and fiber-rich bran portion of the grain, as well as the endosperm (which is the usual product of milling).

Groats can also be produced from pseudocereal seeds such as buckwheat._

In Italy I buy the buckwheat shown in the photo above and add it to soup or eat is as I would cold rice (a salad). I'd never heard of 'kasha' before.


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## JulianStuart

From the discussion it sounded to me like a sort of generic Russian word for porridge - WIktionary has 





> From Russian _ка́ша_ (káša, “porridge, gruel”)


. We can make porridge from a range of cereals, not just oats, so it would seem that kasha has the same breadth. In context, when I say to my wife, "I'm making porridge" she will know it is from oats because that's the only kind I make.


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## london calling

I had always thought that 'groats' meant porridge. I just didn't know exactly what groats were until I looked it up.


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## Myridon

JulianStuart said:


> From the discussion it sounded to me like a sort of generic Russian word for porridge - WIktionary has . We can make porridge from a range of cereals, not just oats, so it would seem that kasha has the same breadth. In context, when I say to my wife, "I'm making porridge" she will know it is from oats because that's the only kind I make.


"Porridge" may be regional in the US.  I don't know anyone who makes porridge other than you and Goldilocks and the three bears. 
In these parts, we have oatmeal, cream of wheat, cream of rice, grits, and malt-o-meal (if they still make that ).


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## JulianStuart

It's in the RH dictionary of AE


> WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2020
> *por•ridge* _(pôr*′*ij, por*′*-),_n. Food a food made of oatmeal, or some other meal or cereal, boiled to a thick consistency in water or milk.


 I have heard oatmeal more recently (I grew up with porridge in the UK). However, the focus of the post was the _breadth of the term_ that seemed to correspod to kasha in Russian: kasha isn't always from buckwheat, just like porridge isn't always from oats.


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## Myridon

JulianStuart said:


> porridge isn't always from oats.


And my comment is still, as far as I'm concerned (and I'm sure a huge number of US-born Americans), porridge is never made at all.  You might saying "Human brain pie isn't always made from oats."


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## e2efour

According to the Oxford Companion to Food, _groats_ (not necessarily buckwheat) is crushed (not finely ground) oats. The US term is _grits_, it seems.
The main producer of kasha (Russian for buckwheat) is what used to be known as the Soviet Union.

I doubt whether many people have heard of _kasha_, but there is a fashion of using foreign words for food products, e.g. _crème fraîche _for soured cream. So perhaps _kasha_ will catch on, like the Russian (_kefir_) and Icelandic  (_skyr_) words for yoghurt, which can been seen in supermarkets.


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## JulianStuart

Myridon said:


> And my comment is still, as far as I'm concerned (and I'm sure a huge number of US-born Americans), porridge is never made at all.  You might saying "Human brain pie isn't always made from oats."


I assume you speak only AE (but this forum is not "AE only") and the folks at Random House have an entry for it and acknowledge that porridge is a word that _does not need "British terms" _etc as part of the entry (that is the notation for the word pavement = sidewalk (British terms) . So, as you noted, it is likely regional if most of the huge number of people you know don't use it. (Oatmeal porridge shows up reasonably frequently in "AE" according to the Google Ngram database). And, as I figure you must have gathered, huge numbers of BE speakers use it


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## Myridon

I know quite a lot of British English, but I don't speak it.  Who would I speak it with?  
I'm not sure why you're arguing with me when I'm being quite clear that I'm not speaking for everyone.


JulianStuart said:


> So, as you noted, it is likely regional if most of the huge number of people you know don't use it. (Oatmeal porridge shows up reasonably frequently in "AE" according to the Google Ngram database).


What does "reasonably frequently" mean?
Google Ngram Viewer
It's practically non-existant compared to "oatmeal".


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## Myridon

e2efour said:


> The US term is _grits_, it seems.


Grits is made from ground, dried hominy (nixtamalized maize).


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## JulianStuart

Myridon said:


> I know quite a lot of British English, but I don't speak it.  Who would I speak it with?
> I'm not sure why you're arguing with me when I'm being quite clear that I'm not speaking for everyone.
> 
> What does "reasonably frequently" mean?
> Google Ngram Viewer
> It's practically non-existant compared to "oatmeal".


I was expecting it to be non-existent based on your comments - hence my choice of words As some frame of reference, here's a comparison of grits and porridge in AE.


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## dojibear

I grew up eating "hot cereal" (oatmeal, cream of wheat) and "cold cereal" (Wheaties or Cheerios in milk) for breakfast. 

I only saw the word "porridge" in fairy tales and in stories about other countries (especially Europe). I never knew what ingredients went into "porridge". One famous old rhyme talks about "pease porridge hot", so I assumed a variety of ingredients were possible.


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## JulianStuart

dojibear said:


> I grew up eating "hot cereal" (oatmeal, cream of wheat) and "cold cereal" (Wheaties or Cheerios in milk) for breakfast.
> 
> I only saw the word "porridge" in fairy tales and in stories about other countries (especially Europe). I never knew what ingredients went into "porridge". One famous old rhyme talks about "pease porridge hot", so I assumed a variety of ingredients were possible.


I think the AE viewpoint has been well described.  The discussion was never about whether porridge is used much in AE   The word was brought up in #24 as a parallel to the word kasha in Russian and it seems to have that function for those of us who use the word. Sorry if you are feeling excluded


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## lingobingo

Wikipedia describes “cream of wheat” as “a type of breakfast porridge mix made from wheat semolina”.

British – predominantly Scottish – *porridge* is made from oats (as noted above), the classic brands being Quaker Oats and Scott’s Porage Oats. (Modern versions are much easier to make than the traditional stuff!) On the rare occasions when I ate it as a child, I always sweetened it with golden syrup. But it was pretty horrible even then. 

It was very different from the savoury kasha I was talking about in #2.


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## Packard

My Chinese roommate used to make porridge by starting his rice cooker at night.  The rice would over-cook into a smooth mush similar to cream of wheat.  I tasted it and it resembled cream of rice. 

I am guessing that porridge is a generic term and covers many types of cooked cereal.


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## Uncle Jack

Packard said:


> I am guessing that porridge is a generic term and covers many types of cooked cereal


In BrE, "porridge" without any qualification is made from oats. Oats come in a variety of forms and ordinary porridge oats is rolled oats that are then chopped into smaller flakes. However many people use whole rolled oats (jumbo oats), which take a little longer to cook. Personally, I reckon rolled oats are too mushy, and I prefer a 50/50 mix of pinhead oats (steel cut oats) and medium ground oatmeal. Note that "oatmeal" is used for ground oats, not rolled oats, so you will be unlikely to hear "oatmeal porridge" in Britain, unless it is, in fact, made from oatmeal (which I think may be done in Scotland).

In more general use "porridge" can be used for anything with a porridge-like consistency, but it is usually prefaced with what it is made from.


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## JulianStuart

Packard said:


> I am guessing that porridge is a generic term and covers many types of cooked cereal.


If you’ve read some of the earlier posts, it’s not a guess


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## kentix

dojibear said:


> I grew up eating "hot cereal" (oatmeal, cream of wheat) and "cold cereal" (Wheaties or Cheerios in milk) for breakfast.


That was my experience, although I think porridge might have been used now and then. Mostly it was the specific name. "No, I don't want cream of wheat!"

Grits has no relation to oats or porridge. Grits are grits (but there is no such thing as one grit.)


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## JulianStuart

kentix said:


> That was my experience, although I think porridge might have been used now and then. Mostly it was the specific name. "No, I don't want cream of wheat!"
> 
> Grits has no relation to oats or porridge. Grits are grits (but there is no such thing as one grit.)


In BE, one could easily descibe grits as "a porridge made from nixtamlized cornmeal".  This is the broad meaning of porridge - the "thick stuff" produced by boiing some cereal with water or milk.


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## velisarius

_ Kasha _ is *nothing* like English porridge oats. Does anyone here actually use the word "groats" for any kind of cereal-gruel-type food?


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## boozer

I never dreamt kasha was English. To me it is a Bulgarian/Slavic word that means any mushy food made of any cereal or flour. Would I understand it? Of course, but...


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## lingobingo

As I said way back in #2, you can buy packets of imported *kasha* (roasted/toasted buckwheat) in the UK – especially in local “ethnic” food stores – but it’s not widely known. It’s much nicer than couscous, in my opinion! But most people have probably never come across it. 

And health stores sell all manner of raw grains, including some called groats. I doubt if they’re used as breakfast cereals.


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## Andygc

boozer said:


> I never dreamt kasha was English. To me it is a Bulgarian/Slavic word that means any mushy food made of any cereal or flour.


It isn't English. I've never heard of it and I haven't seen it in the shops. I'm sure lingobingo is right.


lingobingo said:


> As I said way back in #2, you can buy packets of imported *kasha* (roasted/toasted buckwheat) in the UK – especially in local “ethnic” food stores – but it’s not widely known.


Once I'm allowed out again (May/June?) I might find a Polish grocer's to give it a try - nicer than couscous? That wouldn't be difficult.


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## Packard

Until my roommate introduced me to rice porridge, my only exposure to the word was from Mother Goose:

_Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold
Peas porridge in the pot 9 days old
Some like it hot, some like it cold
Some like it in the pot 9 days old. _


I seem to remember a "groats" poem too, but I cannot recall the name of it.


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## velisarius

I've tried buckwheat a couple of times, as grits and as flour for pancakes, but it isn't to my taste. My Ukrainian friend "believed in" buckwheat _kasha_ and fermented cabbage as beneficial to her health, in the same way that I believe in a good plate of piping hot porridge with soft brown sugar when I'm under the weather. But we each kept to our own.


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## Uncle Jack

Packard said:


> Until my roommate introduced me to rice porridge, my only exposure to the word was from Mother Goose:
> 
> _Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold
> Peas porridge in the pot 9 days old
> Some like it hot, some like it cold
> Some like it in the pot 9 days old. _
> 
> 
> I seem to remember a "groats" poem too, but I cannot recall the name of it.


It was "pease pudding" in the version I knew. The only groats I have found looking at nursery rhymes online use "groat" for the coin (fourpence).


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## kentix

The substance you see to the left of the eggs is grits in the U.S. That's a common breakfast in a Waffle House restaurant - eggs, toast and grits.


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## JulianStuart

Looks like ( a kind of) porridge to me  

I had never heard of kasha before this thread but am happy to learn about it.  

This site has descriptions that seem to be in line with most of the threads above (and  also happens to use the word "porridge" as a general term, the way it's used in BE, but no so widely in the US).  In the UK, porridge is usually made of oats while in the US (and Poland, from posts above), kasha appears to be usually made from buckwheat


> *Kasha* is a type of cereal or porridge made from buckwheat groats which have first been roasted, then soaked and finally slowly simmered until soft. Roasting the groats brings out strong, nutty flavors, and cooked *kasha* has a firm texture and slightly gummy consistency.





> While kasha does usually refer to a cereal or porridge made from buckwheat groats, the word is occasionally used in some parts of the world to refer to any porridge made from any whole grain, including wheat, barley, millet, and oats. In the United States, however, the word kasha refers to buckwheat groats.





> One of the most common problems people have when cooking kasha is that it can sometimes turn out mushy, which means it's been overcooked.


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## kentix

You'd have to defend your honor if you called it porridge where it's served.


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## JulianStuart

kentix said:


> You'd have to defend your honor if you called it porridge where it's served.


It's lighter in colour than porridge from oats  but fits the generic use of the word in BE.
I call a sidewalk and pavement different names depending on where I am, so I think I can manage that


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## Packard

JulianStuart said:


> Looks like ( a kind of) porridge to me
> 
> I had never heard of kasha before this thread but am happy to learn about it.
> 
> This site has descriptions that seem to be in line with most of the threads above (and  also happens to use the word "porridge" as a general term, the way it's used in BE, but no so widely in the US).  In the UK, porridge is usually made of oats while in the US (and Poland, from posts above), kasha appears to be usually made from buckwheat


They sell it in our local grocery store, and it is available from Amazon.com. There are recipes online. 

Wolffs is the brand I see in the stores.  They have been around for about 250 years (seriously). 
The Birkett Mills | The World's Finest Buckwheat Products
(Image)


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