Barley

Introduction

In a few years, barley has climbed the rankings of the most appreciated cereals by the world population, earning an undisputed prestigious role: certainly a great achievement for barley, given that for many years it only played a makeshift role in nutrition. Not surprisingly, it is precisely on common barley that a large part of the entire global diet depends.

From the analysis of the data dating back to 2001, it appears that barley constituted 7% of the Italian cereal production and, in Emilia Romagna, the areas destined for the production of barley were even comparable to those of wheat!
Currently, in the Bel Paese, barley occupies approximately 360,000 hectares of cultivated area, equivalent to a production of 1.4 million tons per year; Russia is certainly the largest producer of barley ever. [FAO, Faostat, 2006]
Barley is a cereal of very high phytotherapeutic importance, although known only to a few: in this regard, this article will focus above all on the description of the therapeutic properties of the plant, after having described it in a general, botanical and alimentary way.

Generality

Common barley (also called cultivated barley or more simply barley) is a plant originating from Asia, known since time immemorial; it is believed that barley was cultivated as early as the 7th millennium BC (other authors place its date of origin even in the 10th century BC) in the Middle East, spreading very slowly - but unstoppably - everywhere. Barley has won the title of the first cereal ever to have been cultivated by man and, until 1400, it was the most exploited cereal for bread making. With the passage of time, barley has given the primacy to wheat, risking to be even forgotten; however, nowadays, barley has regained its prestigious role.
Barley is widely cultivated for fodder and grain; in the latter case, the cereal is used both for feeding livestock and for the production of malt, which in turn is a raw material for the production of beer, whiskey and flour. malt and, secondarily, a coffee substitute.

Botanical description

Barley belongs to the genus Hordeum and to the family of Poaceae: especially the species is remembered Hordeum vulgare, which the varieties belong to tetrasticum and exasticu, and the species Hordeum disticum, whose natural form - widespread in Asia and North Africa - is Hordeum spontaneum. In any case, this classification arouses big differences of opinion among botanical experts, not always harmonizing, considering the innumerable varieties, also similar to other species.
Barley is a herbaceous annual plant, capable of reaching up to 120 centimeters in height when fully ripe. The stem is covered by lanceolate and alternate leaves, consisting of a lamina and auricles (expansions at the level of the lamina of the leaf) rather long: the leaves have particularly developed auricles, always glabrous, which tend to overlap one another. The lower page of the leaf appears smooth, unlike the upper one, characterized by grooves rich in hygroscopic cells.
The flowers, hermaphrodites, composed of two hairy pistils and three stamens, are grouped in dense spikes, made up of small glumes; the glumellae are perfectly attached to the caryopsis (fruit), therefore coated.
The fruits are generally yellowish, color that can vary according to the species and variety, fading from white, to red, to black.
Naked kernels, generally used as a coffee substitute, are quite rare, even if they exist.

Barley malt

By "malt" we mean the kernels of the barley after its germination: the malt can also derive from other cereals in addition to barley but, in these cases, the matrix of origin must be indicated on the label (eg corn , rice, etc.).
The barley kernels, after germination, are processed in the malterias to obtain the malt: the barley grains are macerated in special containers in which, after having absorbed the water, they swell. After a week inside the germination chamber, the malt is dried, consequently germination stops and the humidity drops from 50% to 8%.
But now let's try to give a more detailed description of what happens during the processing of barley malt. During germination, hydrolytic enzymes begin to form in the kernels, capable of transforming starches into fermentable and less complex sugars: l " starch is transformed into maltose and the proteins are broken down into amino acids, thus making the food highly digestible.

By doing so, a product particularly suitable for the preparation of beer and other alcoholic beverages such as whiskey is obtained.

Soluble barley and pearl barley

Pearl barley (also called “world barley”) is simply the kernel of the cereal separated from each integument and from the embryo; in other words, pearl barley is reduced only to the starchy endosperm: it is rich in starches, sugars and gum, with few traces of gluten. As a food, pearl barley is particularly appreciated and appreciated for its high digestibility and for its ease of use: in fact, being devoid of the outer skin, it does not require preventive soaking times and cooking is rather fast.
Soluble barley, on the other hand, is used as a substitute for coffee: after being roasted in the oven at 170-180 ° C, it is ground into a very fine grain, in order to obtain a sort of flour. It is used as a drink by simply adding water or milk, sweetening to taste.

Barley or wheat?

In some ways, barley is preferable to wheat, so much so that, in some Italian and European areas, it has even replaced the cereal par excellence, since it guarantees higher and - above all - more constant yields.
First of all, barley is certainly less demanding than wheat in terms of fertility, as well as being much more competitive towards diseases: in this regard, even the organic cultivation of barley does not cause particular difficulties. It is necessary to mention a fact that took place in 2001: in that year, the common wheat suffered a fungal attack of considerable importance, while the barley remained unharmed. This explains the marked resistance of barley to disease compared to wheat.
Another very important point is the earliness of the cereal: barley certainly proves to be earlier than wheat, as well as having a particularly short biological cycle.
Barley prefers loose, defective but necessarily drained soils, and resists high levels of salinity, unlike wheat. In any case, barley suffers from cold and frost much more than its competitor.
Furthermore, in particularly drought climates, barley grows more easily and with less difficulty than wheat: this fact is explained simply by the lower water consumption and tolerance to high temperatures (not surprisingly, the production of barley is very high in areas of North Africa and the Middle East, characterized by a very arid climate).
In terms of cultivation technique, that of barley and that of wheat are almost comparable: sowing, potassium and phosphorus requirements, fertilization and weeding are the same in both cases. As regards harvesting, however, barley is earlier. and ripens up to two weeks earlier than wheat.
Although in lower quantities than the competitor, barley also forms gluten, so it is also banned in the diet of celiacs.

Barley with zucchini and saffron



Barley with zucchini and saffron - vegan recipe

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Other articles on "Barley"

1. Barley: properties of barley
2. Barley in brief, Summary on barley and its properties

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