Editing Gruel (section)

==In fiction==
[[File:The Writings of Charles Dickens v4 p12 (engraving, cleaned).jpg|thumb|upright|"Oliver asking for more", an [[engraving]] in ''The Writings of [[Charles Dickens]]'' volume 4, published 1894.|alt=A young boy with an empty bold, standing pleadingly in front of an older man, an authority figure]]
In the [[English language|English]]-speaking world, gruel is remembered as the food of the child [[workhouse]] inmates in [[Charles Dickens]]'s [[Industrial Revolution]] novel ''[[Oliver Twist]]'' (1838); the workhouse was supplied with "an unlimited supply of water" and "small quantities of [[oatmeal]]".<ref>''Oliver Twist'', [[s:Oliver Twist/Chapter 2|chapter 2]].</ref> When Oliver asks the master of the workhouse for some more, he is struck with a blow on the head for doing so. The "small saucepan of gruel" waiting upon [[Ebenezer Scrooge]]'s hob in Dickens's 1843 novel ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'' emphasizes how [[wikt:miser|miserly]] Scrooge is. Gruel is also Mr. Woodhouse's preferred and offered dish in Jane Austen's ''[[Emma (novel)|Emma]]'' (1816), often to comic or sympathetic effect. References to gruel in popular culture today continue to refer to miserly or starvation conditions, such as [[Gemma Collins]] in ''[[Celebrity Big Brother 17]]'' (2016), who was denied food for gruel.<ref>There have been many parodies of ''Oliver Twist''; for instance, in ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "[[Kamp Krusty]]", Bart and some of the other children are forced to eat "[[Krusty the Clown|Krusty]] Brand Imitation Gruel" as their only meal, punctuated by the comment "Nine out of ten [[orphan]]s can't tell the difference."</ref>