Barley
There should be many people in Taiwan who have only heard of wheat but not barley, but don’t underestimate it. It was the first crop domesticated by humans along with wheat, peas and lentils!
Barley is an annual plant of the gramineous Hordeum genus. Its ancestor is wild barley that is widely distributed in the eastern Mediterranean basin and countries in West Asia. Humans have known how to pick up wild barley as food about 50,000 years ago. Originally, in order to spread the seeds of wild barley to distant places, the grains of wild barley would fall one after another after maturity. It was collected, so in the end, only the cultivar (two-rowed barley) that won’t drop is selected! Current research suggests that wild barley spread from the Fertile Crescent and the eastern edge of the Iranian Plateau to Europe and North Africa, and from the eastern edge of the Iranian Plateau to Asia after being domesticated in the Fertile Crescent and the eastern edge of the Iranian Plateau about 12,000 years ago. When it came to China five thousand years ago, it was mentioned in the “The Book of Songs”: “Thou didst confer on us the wheat and the barley, Which God appointed for the nourishment of all;”
In addition to two-row barley, hundreds of years later, due to genetic mutations and breeding, six-row barley and “huskless” barley that are easy to husk during threshing have appeared one after another. The output of a six-row barley is relatively high. At present, two-row barley is mostly used to make animal feed, six-row barley is used for winemaking, and huskless barley is mostly used for food.
Perhaps because barley is drought-tolerant and salt-tolerant, and the requirements for fertilizer are not high, so the Roman goddess Ceres wears a crown made of barley instead of wheat; but because barley is lower in gluten than wheat, Barley flour cannot be fermented to make fluffy and soft bread, so after the emergence of bread wheat, the bread and porridge made of barley were eliminated.
Although barley porridge and bread are replaced by wheat-made products, people still “drink” barley-beer every day! Because the alcohol produced by fermentation killed bacteria, people at that time found that drinking beer is much safer than drinking raw water; and yeast can provide important nutrients such as vitamins, so the ancient Egyptian inscription also reminded mothers to help their children prepare every day two jars of beer and three small loaves of bread, so that the child can develop healthily! Because barley produces two amylases (α-amylase and β-amylase) when it germinates, while wheat produces only one (α-amylase), barley is absolutely indispensable for beer making. The earliest beer recipe- from the book “Ningkasi Hymn” from 1800 BC-was to use barley. Until now, barley is the fourth largest grain in the world, mainly used to make animal feed and brew beer.
Beer brewing may have started shortly after humans learned farming. This can be seen from the earliest writing (cuneiform) that has a symbol for beer (a pottery with a few lines drawn in it); it was used by the Sumerians and the Egyptians. Beer and bread are used to pay salaries, give rewards, and even be used as wedding gifts. The ancient Egyptians used “bread and beer” as their daily greetings, and even the “Code of Hammurabi” enacted in 1754 BC also stipulated the method of brewing, selling and pricing beer.
In the Greek period, beer was considered the drink of the barbarians, and only farmers and slaves (and sergeants in battle) drank beer and ate bread made of barley. The Romans could never regard barley as a staple food, they even used barley to punish soldiers who didn’t fight well!
The Sumerians and the ancient Egyptians also used beer as medicine to treat constipation, indigestion and other diseases. Chinese medicine believes that barley is “salty, warm, slightly cold, and non-toxic.” It has the function of “curing indigestion and stopping diarrhea.”
In addition to winemaking, barley is also an important animal feed. Barley has higher protein content than corn. Adding barley to animal feed formulas can reduce the need for added protein. Seventy percent of the barley produced in the world is used to make animal feed, and even 85 percent of the barley in Canada enters the stomachs of animals!
In addition to beer and feed, whiskey is also related to barley. Especially the “single malt whisky” must only be distilled with wine made from barley! The name of whiskey comes from the Celtic word “water of life”. Distillation technology appeared in northern Mesopotamia as early as the fourth millennium BC. It was originally used to produce perfume; until the eighth century AD, Arab scholars Jabir ibn Hayyan modified the distillation unit, the distillation technology was used to concentrate the wine. Why is distilled wine called “the water of life”? It may be because beer and wine are often used as medicine, so people think that distilled wine should work better! However, Li Shizhen does not believe that distilled spirits are good for health, so in the Compendium of Materia Medica, what he said about “shochu”(distilled spirit) is: “Pungent, sweet, hot, and poisonous…. Excessive drinking will defeat the stomach and the gallbladder, and lose heart. You will even die of black intestines and stomach rot.” In fact, you really have to drink in moderation. Don’t drink too much. Don’t drive if you drink!
About 3,600 years ago, highland barley (one of the barley strains) were introduced to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Because highland barley can be planted at an altitude of more than 2,500 meters, Tibetans can move to higher places and settle down.
Taiwan used to grow barley during the Japanese Occupation era, but because barley was a temperate crop, the planting time was mostly in autumn and winter. Later, because it was no match for the competition from imported barley, planting was stopped after 1985. Until 2014, Alechemist Co. began to invite farmers to re-cultivation of barley in Taichung Daya, and in June 2018, it produced beer with 10% of Taiwan’s own barley.
