Barley can increase food safety and provide a fairer distribution
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These strong traditions we should carry on in a world marked by war, blockades and bad years. In this way, we can increase food security for our own population, but also contribute to food grains on the world market being able to distribute more fairly.
We have eaten build ever since the agricultural culture broke through in the Iron Age. Barley, and also oats, was in earlier times referred to as “home grain flour”, and in historical sources the term “grain” is synonymous with Bygd. The grain was sacred, and was called “the loan of God.”
When it was grain shortages became a crisis, especially before the potato came to our rescue at the turn of the 19th century.
Build defects gluten. Our daily bread was therefore flat pastries which did not rise much. This is because the building does not form gluten networks which are able to hold on to carbon dioxide which is developed in fermentation processes. Flatbread, lefser, porridge and gruel were the daily diet throughout the country.
Rye flour in the baking was considered fine, and this phenomenon was studied in the 17th century by the poet-priest Petter Dass. He asks why the northerner chooses to spend money on buying rugs when he can make do with self-produced building in the flatbread.
He believes also to have found the answer: rye mixed in the barley dough makes the flatbread a little tougher, so that it does not break so quickly. The flat bread was to serve as a base, a kind of bread plate, for other ingredients.
The term braudisk from Norse, refers to this meaning. Crumbs of flatbread were then clearly used, often with sour milk over. Nothing had to go to waste, and the concept of food waste hardly existed.
The supply of grain was limited and it was never known whether the grain crops would fail. Looking for solutions to soak the flour became an important exercise, and it is well known to mix bark from different woods in the bread.
The bark bread was therefore prevalent in times of crisis, and history shows that bread could at times contain more bark than grain. When the potato came to Norway in the late 18th century, it was experimented with using the new cultivated plant along with flour.
Raw, grated potato was together with barley flour for rasp ball. Boiled malt potato mixed with flour turned into potato chips and potato dumplings.
Northern Norway received odessarug in exchange for fish through the Pomor trade with Russia in the 18th century. Rye contains gluten, and can be raised to a greater extent, and thus leavened rye bread gradually became widespread. This bread was called stomp or kaku / kake and we are approaching today’s perception of what a bread should be.
Wheat bread was prestige in the 19th century. Peter Christen Asbjørnsen contributed strongly with dietary advice which, among other things, said that coffee, sugar and wheat flour were a blessing for the people.
Wheat separates from barley and oats, and also rye, by having a different gluten quality. When mixed with water, the gluten protein forms a tough network that holds together well, and thus has a great ability to hold on to the gas that develops during fermentation.
Thus raised the bread and becomes fluffy. This property is a weighty argument that wheat is the number one food grain.
Button on grain = crisis. History is rich in events that years, war and blockades have led to famine – also in our country. This was the case in the years before the Black Death hit us in the 14th century, and also later.
Both 17th century wars with Sweden and the 19th century England blockade are examples that testify to tragic outcomes of a halt in grain imports. We had become dependent on imports of grain from Russia in the north, and via Denmark in the south, first as rye and later wheat.
History repeats itself seg. Today’s situation with war and trade blockades has once again actualized the importance of producing its own mat.
Russia and Ukraine accounts for about a quarter of world wheat exports, and the war will affect the supply and turnover of grain on the world market. Norway has enough money to buy the grain, which produces regardless of the price – as long as someone is willing to produce the grain, and as long as national borders are open.
The government proposes nevertheless to establish grain warehouses on the farms scattered throughout the country, and agricultural organizations encourage farmers to grow food grains. The prices of artificial fertilizers mean that farmers consider growing pre-grains instead of food grains, and barley then becomes a more natural choice.
Food grains are too barley! Food grains today are synonymous with food wheat, and barley is often referred to as animal feed. Barley and oats are a nutritionally good choice since both cereals contain beta-glucan which has a beneficial effect on cardiovascular disease.
Absence of gluten is also a health aspect for many. Dishes with roots in our cultural heritage are in demand and valued, and in Copenhagen you will find the trendy restaurant Grød.
Primer is set on the menu and number of places. Products with construction are therefore sustainable in many ways, and should have been profiled much stronger. Here, a change of attitude is needed that makes our rich society once again understand that building is valuable and good food for people as well. Barley should be given great attention in the future, both for the sake of its own and other countries’ food security.
Barley is «The Norwegian rice», and is very tasty and useful both as «byggotto», as barley porridge and thus also as barley cream. Flatbread and crispbread can be baked with barley flour, and also added to waffles and pancakes.
I the very Most pastries can replace some of the wheat flour, even if you are looking for a fluffy pastry. Wrapping mat in soft lefser is also an ancient tradition, which today is referred to as wraps.
Tortilla lips of wheat and corn are very popular, so why not use lefser with barley and potatoes to a greater extent? With a few simple steps, Norwegian raw materials, such as barley, garden and potato, will be able to have a much larger area of application than they have today, and the dependence on imported cooking wheat will be less.
The authorities is still launching campaigns to influence food consumption, and this should also happen for Norwegian barley. Here we have an ethical responsibility, and this responsibility we should take now!
This text is an abbreviated version of a text that is first on blogg.forskning.no.