On Food and Cooking

“barley eaters”; barley porridge, the original
polenta, was made with roasted flaxseed and
coriander. In the Middle Ages, and especially
in northern Europe, barley and rye were the
staple foods of the peasantry, while wheat was
reserved for the upper classes. In the medieval
Arab world, barley dough was fermented for
months to produce a salty condiment, murri,
that food historian Charles Perry has
discovered tastes much like soy sauce.
Today, barley is a minor food in the West;
half of production is fed to animals, and a
third is used in the form of malt. Elsewhere,
barley is made into various staple dishes,
including the Tibetan roasted barley flour
tsampa, often eaten simply moistened with
tea; it’s an important ingredient in the
Japanese fermented soy paste miso; and in
Morocco (the largest per capita consumer)
and other countries of north Africa and
western Asia it’s used in soups, porridges, and
flat breads. In Ethiopia there are white, black,