Steel cut oats – it’s all about using the right words

McCann’s Steel Cut Irish Oats. Mmmmmm….doesn’t that sound good?

I came to New York hot on the heels of the dot come bust, gathering the money I had saved and figuring I could find a way to get things going before I went bust. Things weren’t looking so good by 2003. I remember sitting in the grocery store looking at that can of McCann’s Steel Cut Irish Oats. I wanted it so much. But I just couldn’t. Not even as a splurge. I didn’t have the extra $2.71 available, so Quaker Oats it was. I don’t know what it was about having steel cut oats that sounded so good. It just did. Even though I didn’t know what steel cut meant.

I forgot about that day until just this morning, when I was making some oatmeal for my son. They were organic rolled oats. I never knew that was what I had been eating all of the time when I was growing up. Suddenly, that bland oatmeal I had grown up with had an identity. They were Rolled oats. That sounded so much better. Rolled oats – now that’s a viable alternative to steel cut. And just like that, the oats of my youth were resuscitated.

Psychology is such a funny thing. Until I heard of rolled outs, steel cut sounded so special. After that, it was just one of two choices. That’s the power of language – it really moves you. You see it all over. Handmade, fresh cut, rolled, steel cut. It works. And I’m sure it’s not just for food. What would work for weddings? The kicker to all of this is I don’t even like oatmeal all that much.