Hordeum vulgare, the oldest cultivated cereal in the Near East and Europe (and possibly anywhere, for it may have come before cultivation of rice in the Far East). In the ancient world it was for long the most important food grain; but it is now used primarily for animal fodder, secondly for making malt for beer and other products, and only thirdly as a food grain.
The name barley derives from the Old English bære, which survives in Scotland as bere (see bere meal) without the suffix ‘ly’ which was originally given to turn it into an adjective (meaning ‘of barley’).
Barley originated as a wild grass of the Near East, often called H. spontaneum, but now classed in the same species as cultivated barley, H. vulgare. Wild barley, or remains of it, have been found in N. Africa, Asia Minor, and temperate Asia as far east as Afghanistan. It has fragile ears, from which the seeds fall when mature: a feature necessary to a wild plant which has to propagate itself, but unsuitable for a cultivated crop. Domestication led to the emergence, as early as the 6th millennium bc, of cultivated barley with firmly attached grains, which then became dependent on cultivation for its survival.
Types of barley are described as ‘2-rowed’, ‘4-rowed’, and ‘6-rowed’. These terms are explained in technical books about cereals, but are hard for lay people to understand, at least without diagrammatic pictures. It is perhaps enough to know that the earliest cultivated forms of barley, and most modern varieties, are 2-rowed, whereas 6-rowed barley, which in antiquity seemed to give a better yield, was the chief barley of the ancient world. This is why the barley ears depicted on ancient Greek coins, for example, do not look like modern barley, being shorter and fatter.
Most barleys of whichever row number have seed husks terminating in stiff bristles (awns). It is awnless types, with reduced husks, which are known as ‘naked’ barleys. These are most common in the east.
The oldest known remains of barley are at Tell Mureybat, Syria, a site dating from about 8000 bc. A considerable store of grains was found but they are of the wild type and evidently gathered rather than cultivated. (It is also at this site that the earliest wild wheat was discovered. Many of the oldest sites in Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor have both barley and wheat; but barley is more abundant and found in more places, and it seems almost certain that it was cultivated earlier.)
During the whole of the ancient period up to classical times barley was the chief staple grain of the whole Near East, including Egypt and Greece. It reached Spain in the 5th millennium bc and spread north from there to what is now France and Germany, although it probably did not reach Britain until the Iron Age, around 500 bc. In its eastward movement it reached India in the 3rd millennium bc and China in the 2nd.
At the beginning of the classical era in Greece, barley was still the leading staple food all around the eastern end of the Mediterranean. It was eaten as porridge and made into unleavened bread and malted for beer.
During the last centuries bc in Rome barley gradually became less esteemed. This must have been partly due to improvements in bread-making. Barley contains much less gluten than wheat, this being the substance which gives wheat bread its firm, elastic texture and ability to rise. Leavened bread can be made from barley, but it is always dense, coarse in texture, and dark, although the flavour may be mild and pleasant. Also, barley breads stale quickly, because they lack the water-retaining powers of the gluten network in wheat or the natural gums in rye. Thus increasing skill in making well-risen bread, and the universal preference for light-coloured bread, led to a demand for wheat from those who could afford it.
However, the ancient Egyptians, who made good bread themselves, did not abandon barley; and it did not fall into general disuse. It remained cheaper than wheat and was much eaten by the poor. It was considered a strengthening food (wrongly, for it contains less protein than wheat). At the Eleusinian games winners were awarded sacks of barley. Roman gladiators were fed on it, and were known as hordearii, ‘barley men’.
In Europe, after the fall of the Roman Empire, barley bread was considered inferior to rye bread and greatly inferior to wheat; but barley bread was used even by the rich, as trenchers, which served instead of plates. Barley remained the chief bread grain of Europe as regards quantity rather than quality until the 16th century, and lingered in remote areas, for example, in the north and west of Britain, for some time longer. In the 19th century in the form of bonnag, it was still the main kind in the Isle of Man.
Barley had other uses in Europe apart from bread, being added to soups and stews or made into porridge, gruel, and beverages such as barley water (see below). Barley also continued to be grown for use in making alcoholic drinks.
As for the Orient, barley had arrived in China before wheat, and evidence of its cultivation is very ancient. It was quite widely eaten in the north; though as a cheap alternative to wheat, millet was preferred. It was cooked in broth, or used like rice, or made into flat cakes; and it was malted to make malt extract, which was used as a sweetener. This product was made in China from early times, and was later to become the principal sweetener of Japan, where barley is still an important food, chiefly in pearl form (see below).
In Tibet, and in the adjacent western parts of China, barley is a more important crop. Its resistance to the severe mountain climate gives it a major role through the whole Himalayan area to northern India. The staple food of Tibet, tsampa, is toasted barley (or other grain) ground to a flour.
Barley went to the New World with early European settlers. Columbus could not make it grow on Haiti, but the Spanish did better in Mexico and in 1602 it was grown in Massachusetts. In the USA it was seldom used for bread, since there was maize as a second-class alternative to wheat, but it was made into beer. As in Europe, barley was and remains a major fodder crop.
As well as being ground into barley meal (for a particular kind of which, see bere meal), barley is sold in various forms. Whole barley grain for use in soups and stews may have some or all of the bran ground off. Unground grain, with the bran intact, used to be called Scotch barley and was the cheapest kind. Pot barley has some of the bran removed, and pearl barley is ground to complete whiteness. The bran has a distinct but pleasant flavour, whereas pearl barley has almost none. ‘Patent barley’ is meal made from pearl barley, which is used as a thickener and to make babies' cereal feeds.
Barley water used to be made at home by boiling pearl barley in water. The infusion was cooled, sweetened, and sometimes flavoured with orange or lemon. Ready-made and bottled barley water is now more usual. It is a traditional drink of infants, invalids, and tennis players at Wimbledon. See also orgeat.
Barley sugar is a sweet which was originally prepared from flavoured barley water made into a syrup with sugar and boiled to the verge of caramelization. Nowadays there is no longer any barley in it, but the name persists.
Among the dishes made from barley, barley porridge is more delicate than oatmeal porridge, to the point of being rather insipid. It was usually made with milk rather than water. A sweet version with nuts, Belila, is traditionally made by Sephardic Jews to celebrate a baby cutting its first tooth. Another porridge-like dish in Britain was barley berry, or aleberry, made by boiling stale barley bread in mild ale until thick. This was served with honey and cream. Lothian barley pudding, still made, is a plain boiled pudding made from pot barley, currants, water, and a pinch of salt, and served with sugar and thin cream or milk. Dorothy Hartley (1954) cites an old English dish, Barley bake with celery; barley, chopped celery, and mutton broth are the main ingredients. However, the barley dishes which survive most strongly in Britain are probably soups with pearl barley, exemplified by Scotch barley broth; see Scotch broth. A larger range of barley dishes is to be found further north, e.g. in Russia and the Baltic countries.
In conclusion, it is noteworthy that Sokolov (1996), in a masterly survey of cereal grains, declared barley to be his favourite and furnished an anthology of recipes which should go a long way to convince any sceptics.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Hartley, Dorothy (1954), Food in England, London: Macdonald.
Sokolov, Raymond (1996), With the Grain, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
