Gardening with Grains. Brie Arthur
harvested the grasses that grew naturally near their communities long before “farming” techniques were established. Scientists believe they have discovered the world’s oldest-known grain silos at an Early Neolithic village called Dhra’, in modern Jordan. These silos, dating back 11,000 years, contained remnants of barley and early types of wheat. Another site, in Israel, revealed a trove of 23,000-year-old grains.
Over time, grains and their cultivation were becoming essential to the rise of civilization in other places around the world: rice in China, more than 8,000 years ago; sorghum in Africa, about 7,000 years ago; and in Mesoamerica, an ancestor of corn was domesticated about 6,000 years ago.
Ancient people ate grains in much the same way we do today. Wheat grains were made into flour and used for bread baking. Rice was steamed and eaten hot or cold. Oats were mashed with water or milk to make oatmeal. And perhaps most importantly, our ancient ancestors created beer by fermenting barley. Beer is the oldest manufactured beverage in the world and had very low alcohol content in its original creation. It too was an important source of carbohydrates and nutrients in ancient diets.
Did you know… there are records of the workers who built Egypt’s pyramids at Giza being paid in beer and bread? An ancient example of grain being used by early civilizations as a form of currency.
The historical impact of grains in global agriculture is profound. Because grains are small, hard and dry, they can be stored, measured and transported easily, especially compared to other food crops like fresh fruits, roots and tubers. The development of cereal grains allowed excess food to be produced and stored, which ultimately led to the creation of the first permanent settlements and, in time, societal structuring.
Today, those of us living in the industrialized world take for granted that grains are grown, stored and transported across the globe. We are accustomed to seeing silos and giant combines responsible for efficiently harvesting crops. The invention of the combine created the single most important piece of agricultural equipment.
THE AMAZING COMBINE
The combine is truly a remarkable machine. It does three jobs in the harvesting of grain: cutting it, threshing it, and winnowing the seed from the chaff.
Cutting removes the grain from the stalk of grass. When doing this by hand in your home garden, it is just the removal of the seed head from the dried stem.
Threshing loosens the edible grain from its casing, called the chaff. The chaff is inedible and humans and animals cannot digest it. This step is significantly more complex for a home gardener without proper equipment, though there are some creative solutions for this step that involve your favorite child garden helpers! My young helpers have been threshing heroes.
Winnowing, the final step, is the removal of the grain from the chaff.
Combine harvesters make this process time-and cost-effective. It is my dream that one day there will be a combine for small-batch growers like me – and maybe you! (See page 153 for how we thresh and winnow at home).
HARVESTING ON A SMALL SCALE: The sight of those giant combines may be common in developed, wealthier countries, but the standard for global grain production isn’t large fields tended by expensive machinery and planted with modern, genetically improved varieties. In the developing world today, very few farmers have the resources that we are so accustomed to seeing in North America. Farmers in the developing world typically cultivate just a few acres and provide grain for their local community. These farmers usually thresh and winnow with separate machines after harvesting the field. In many places, harvesting is still done with hand tools such as the sickle, a long, curved blade used for cutting many stalks of grain at once. These are the methods that home grain growers can look to as resources.
QUESTIONS ARISE: And this is why writing this book matters. For most of my life I took for granted the benefits of large-scale commercial agriculture, with its high efficiency and low cost. A modern miracle, no doubt, but it may be bringing unintended consequences. As scientists develop improved crops, we see agricultural practices evolve – the most controversial practice being the application of persistent herbicides and systemic pesticides (see Chapter Four).
Could some agricultural practices be negatively affecting health? It’s a question that needs to be raised and settled. In the years to come, I hope and expect that will happen, and more information will be discovered regarding the rise of gluten intolerances and serious diseases like celiac. I do not want to speculate without proper data about conventional agricultural practices, and I encourage you to not rush to judgment on this topic either. But be mindful of what you eat and seek to learn about how it was grown. For me, my simple solution is to grow some of my own grains and support local farmers who cultivate a diverse range of crops, using organic methods whenever possible.
The act of gardening is meaningful. By growing the plants that you love to eat you impact more than just your own diet. You can influence your neighbors and create habitat for local insects and wildlife. The roots of your plants will help clean storm water. And every single time you eat something that you grew, you help reduce food miles. Gardening is a hobby that provides untold environmental benefits and solutions. I hope you will always remember that you are doing your part to make the world a better place, one plant at a time! ■
Four
Ancient Grains to Modern-Day Cultivation
Ancient grains are a whole subject unto themselves and have recently garnered a fair amount of attention. The term conjures up a kind of exotic appeal, a return to a purer state, in tune with grains’ essential nature. And yet, it’s not a term that has a fixed meaning. With interest in ancient grains on the rise, it is important to examine what it does mean.
Since all cereals are technically ancient (having historical and archeological relevance dating back thousands of years), how can some be called ancient and others not? The current distinction relates to the purity of the strain. Generally, the term “ancient grains” refers to crops that are largely unchanged over the last several hundred years of cultivation. They have not been manipulated through commercial hybridization or genetic modifications. They therefore replicate the germplasm – the genetic material of germ cells – that would have been grown in ancient times.
When people inquire about “ancient grains,” they are most often referring to wheat – specifically, the varieties of einkorn, emmer (or farro), khorosan (or Kamut) and spelt.
Beyond wheat, heirloom varieties of other proper cereal grains such as black barley, red and black rice, blue corn, sorghum and millet are also classified as ancient grains. To make this even more intriguing, pseudo-cereal crops such as amaranth, buckwheat, chia and quinoa are also considered to be ancient grains. Obviously, this is a broad category full of complications, contradictions and the potential for misinformation.
WHAt ABOUT HEIRLOOMS? The term heirloom is always a cause of confusion. In my mind, it is an open-pollinated plant that pre-dates 1930. It isn’t necessarily “ancient,” in that these varieties marketed as heirloom are not thousands of years old. As I have researched the term “heirloom” – not only for grain but also in reference of the ever-so-popular category of tomatoes – the defining characteristics revolve around the idea that these are old varieties that are no longer in mainstream production. As a result, they are perceived to be more valuable, boasting better flavor and higher nutritional density. Those assumptions are not always accurate, which is part of the problem with terms like “heirloom” or “ancient” being used to market food crops. It is fair to say that both terms refer to old varieties that stir romantic notions of the past.
That is not to say there isn’t great nutritional value in these olden-times selections. Ancient wheat