BARLEY - Hordeum vulgare
The first wild plants of this ancient grass may have sprung up in the highlands
of Ethiopia, or, alternatively, in Tibet, take your pick. The natives of
the old city of Jericho ate barley as long ago as 8000 BC. The Babylonians
brewed beer from barley around 2500 BC. Barley was the chief grain of both
the ancient Greeks and the Hebrews and though many Romans made use of it
in porridge and bread, the wealthier sorts came to consider it fit only
for the poor. Barley remained an important bread grain in Europe until
the 1500’s when wheat breads began to take over.
Adaptable barley was one of the first crops to be grown successfully
on land reclaimed from the sea by the Dutch. Today most of the world’s
barley is ground into feed for cattle or hogs, though the grain remains
an important food to people in Tibet, Finland, northern Germany and Ethiopia.
Twenty-five percent of U.S. barley is made into malt, an important ingredient
in beer and whiskey.
19th century print of the barley plant ( HFCA)
Threshing barley in Dolpo, Nepal (photo by Eric Valli, Smithsonian Magazine, November 1985)
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