WHEAT
- Triticum
Wheat is the grass
most often baked into bread or shaped into pasta,
around the world. Within the genus Triticum are contained
30 species which further separate into 40,000 kinds
of wheat. Botanists have traced to Turkey the origins
of “einkorn”, the wild grass believed to be one of
the ancestors of all modern varieties of cultivated
wheat. Wheat growing probably began about 10,000 years
ago and after production wore out the land in the
earliest Middle eastern agricultural societies, Egypt
became the world’s grain superpower. An ideal crop
for Egypt, wheat had a life cycle that corresponded
perfectly with the annual flooding of the Nile River.
The floods laid down a nutrient-rich layer of soil
along its banks in which farmers scattered seeds.
The efforts of only a portion of the population could
provide food for all—and even resulted in grain surpluses.
The Egyptians also made early use of yeast, the single-celled
organism that makes bread dough puff up.
China is the world’s
major wheat producer and its largest importer of wheat.
Argentina, the U.S., Canada, France and Australia
are big producers and exporters.
Learn
more about wheat here.
Parts of the wheat plant (TFM coll)
Kernel of Wheat (image
source)
History
Wheat discovery imagined by illustrators Maud &
Miska Petersham (TFM coll)
Ancient Egyptian wheat harvest
Roman coin with wheat stalk (TFM coll.)
Close up of ancient and more modern wheat stalks (TFM
collection)
Harvest
Wheat harvest (painting, early 20th century) (TFM
coll)
World War 2 poster, USA (TFM coll)
Russian wheat harvest illustration (1950's) (TFM coll)
Wheat harvest, ceramic figurine, Belgian, 1950's (TFM
coll)
Mississippi River wheat barge, port of New Orleans
Milling
Horse powered wheat mill, Roman (undated) Vatican
Museum (image)
Milling wheat in India (image
source)
Dutch tile of a windmill with miller's home next door.
(image
source)
Click
here for images of the world's windmills.
Wheat
elevators and mill in Argentina
Animation
of milling process
Sack of flour from Cortez Milling Co. Colorado, USA
(TFM coll)
Baking
Lebanese village flatbread baking early 20th century
(TFM coll)
Quebec, Canada roadside village bread ovens (TFM coll)
Wheat Products
Bakery items from wheat flour, magazine illustration
1930's USA (TFM coll)
Sliced bread from wheat flour, 1930's illustration
USA (TFM coll)
Pasta shapes from wheat flour (TFM coll)
Wheat cereal box cover (TFM coll)
Ribbon winning cakes from wheat flour, NM State Fair,
2005 (TFM coll)
Kwass:
Russian bread drink (TFM coll)
Decorative Wheat
Wheat
(corn) dollies (TFM coll)
Wheat harvester statue, Battle Creek, MI, USA (TFM
coll)
Wheat a symbol of the UN's Food & Agriculture
Organization
Kansas USA license plate with wheat stalks (TFM coll)
Wheat Feeds the World
(TFM Coll)
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman
Borlaug
outstanding in the field of wheat research
Bolvian woman crushing wheat berries by hand takes hours
each day (left);
With the new grain mill, it only takes 15 minutes to
grind wheat for all the families in Calala (FAO/K.Iversen)
Learn
more about this technological improvement.
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