Barley

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Barley (Latin Hordeum) - a genus of herbaceous plants, representing the family of Cereals (Latin Poaceae) on Earth. Barley is more familiar to the modern urban person in the form of cereals, which have completely different names. Porridge, properly cooked from such cereals, is nourishing, tasty and beneficial to human health.

What's in your name

The ears of Barley, like many ears of plants of the family Cereals, nature has provided with sharp long bristles, which botanists call the word "awn". On some enemies of the plants of the genus Barley, such awns terrify, which formed the basis of the Latin name of the genus "Hordeum", the meaning of which echoes the words "bristles" and "horror".

The Russian name of the genus "Barley" is lost in the Proto-Slavic language, in which the consonant word meant the verb "to bend", which is associated with the severity of ripe grains, bending flexible ears in a graceful bow to the nurse-earth.

Description

Plants of the genus Barley are gramineous terrestrial grasses with short underground rhizomes, which can be annual or perennial, sometimes biennial.

Erect thin hollow stems are covered with simple sessile green leaves of a linear or lanceolate shape, carefully embracing the stem with their sheaths. The edges of the plate are smooth.

The spike-shaped inflorescence is formed by flowers, up to 1 centimeter in diameter, with an inconspicuous perianth.

The crown of the growing season is the fruit, which is a dry yellowish caryopsis.

Varieties

The number of species of the genus varies from 32 to 43 in different sources. For example, let's dwell on a few of them:

* Common barley (Latin Hordeum vulgare)

* Maned barley (Latin Hordeum jubatum)

* Two-row barley (lat. Hordeum distichon)

* Bulbous barley (Latin Hordeum bulbosum)

* Short-awned barley (Latin Hordeum brevisubulatum).

Advantages of plants of the genus Barley

Barley is man's oldest friend, grown for nutritious grains rich in vitamins; protein and starch, moreover, their ratio in grains is very well balanced by nature; amino acids, including the very necessary connective tissues of the human body "lysine"; microelements …

Today, the popularity of cereals obtained from barley grains is not as high as it was at the time when people in Russia still did not know anything about potatoes. At first, the potatoes brought to Russia did not appeal to the peasants, since they tried to eat not the roots, but the tops of the plant, which led to disastrous results for human health. When they figured out the essence, the cultivation of barley was pushed aside by potato fields, the yield of which was much more attractive.

Recently, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in the fruits of Barley, from which three types of cereals are produced: barley, Dutch and barley.

Differences in cereals from barley grains

In principle, all three types of cereals produced by the food industry are the same in their chemical composition. The differences lie in their appearance, which in turn affects the time and methods of preparing dishes from them.

Barley grits are more like a mixture of sharp particles of different sizes, since they are obtained by crushing grains. Such cereals require less time for cooking.

A little time is required when preparing a Dutch woman, since this cereal is a grain brought to oval balls, the porridge from which is obtained not only faster, but also much softer.

It takes the most time to cook barley porridge. This is what caused the low popularity of pearl barley porridge, since people simply did not know how to cook it correctly, saving time on the cooking process. If the barley is allowed to boil well, using a "water bath" or modern pressure cookers, then rarely will anyone refuse such porridge.