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My point was I've eaten cereal most of my life, in the form of rolled oats or steel-cut oats (and now increasingly using oat groats), not the sweetened stuff that comes in little packets, and recently been happy to branch out, inspired in part by memories of breakfast in Japan.

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Maybe it's a regional thing, but "breakfast cereal" is exclusive of "oatmeal" where I'm from (despite oats being a cereal grain). Breakfast cereal is crunchy and served cold, neither of which applies to oatmeal (even overnight oats are cold but not crunchy).

Why wouldn't you prepare and serve oatmeal cold?

Overnight oats / bircher muesli is served cold and requires no cooking. The time aspect is to give the oats time to absorb the liquid - cold oats swimming in freshly poured milk isn't the most appetising way to eat oats.

Of course you can "speed up" the process by blending them into a smoothie.

You can (overnight oats), but it's still not crunchy.

If you toast the oats first to make them crunchy, it's no longer the dish called "oatmeal" (which is a porridge) but now it's a kind of granola, which can be used as a breakfast cereal.

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