Rolled Oats – The HistoryThe early history of cultivated oats is not clear. For centuries oats were considered to be a weed in barley and wheat fields. Oats took root in northern Europe and particularly in Scotland. In 18th centuries, oat mills made their appearance in Scotland, typically incorporating kilns for roasting the grain. After being heat-processed, the oats went through a so-called groat machine, which removed the hulls by the action of a fan.
Almost all oatmeal available in the United States during the early 19th century was imported from Scotland and Canada and sold primarily in pharmacies. The early oatmeal tended to be very floury, as oat groats were ground on millstones, with sifting to remove some but not all of the resulting flour.
Oat milling took a great step forward with the invention of a groat-cutting machine by Ehrrichsen in 1877. Ehrrichsen was employed in an oatmeal mill owned by Ferdinand Schumacher, of Akron, Ohio, who was the known as the oats meal King and later was one of the founders of The Quaker Oats Company. This groat-cutting device aided in the formation of granular or steel-cut oatmeal, which produced a cooked cereal with a superior texture, containing little or no fine flour, even without sifting. Subsequently, steel-cut groats were rolled into flakes to form quick cooking oats similar to the most popular cook-up oat cereal of today. Rolled Oats – The History
