Barley, the nutritious grain

Historians say that barley is the oldest food that has ever been grown. It seems to have been the main plant that ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans used to make bread. The grain was especially important to the Jews, and when religious history talks about the fruits of the earth, it is often used in place of wheat.

Barley was almost the only food that regular people and soldiers ate in ancient Greece and Rome. The flour was turned into gruel using this recipe: “Dry twenty pounds of barley flour near the fire or in the oven, then parch it. Add three pounds of linseed meal, half a pound of coriander seeds, two ounces of salt, and as much water as you need.” If the food was supposed to be especially tasty, a little millet was also added to the paste to give it more “cohesion and delicacy.” Barley was also eaten whole, in which case it was first dried. This is still how it is made in some parts of Palestine, many parts of India, and the Canary Islands, where it is called gofio.

During the reign of Charles I, almost all of the average English people ate barley meal instead of wheat. In some parts of Europe, India, and other countries in the East, peasants and troops still eat a lot of it as their everyday grain food. The first people to live in New England also used it a lot to make bread.

Barley is less healthy than wheat, and many people don’t like the way it tastes. It is also not as easy to digest as some other foods. Since its starch cells are less able to dissolve in stomach juice, they are stronger against it.

There are different kinds of barley, but the one that is grown most often is called two-row or two-eared barley. The barley grain is made up of parts that are similar to those of wheat and oats.

Scotch milled, or pot barley, is a grain that has had its outer husk taken off. Pearl barley is made by removing the top layer of the grain, which is fibrous. Patent barley is pearl barley that has been ground into flour. Because barley flour only has a small amount of gluten, it needs to be mixed with wheat flour in order to make bread. When added in small amounts to whole-wheat bread, it helps keep the loaf moist, and some people think it makes the bread taste better.

The most common way this grain is used as a food is to make pearl or Scotch barley. When it’s been cooked well, barley takes about two hours to digest.