Feeding Italy for millennia: the history of ancient grains

Jul 23, 2018 676

BY: DONATELLA POLIZZI

Greeks and Romans offered spelt to the Gods, Aztecs considered chia seeds worthy of tributes, and farro is noted in the Old Testament. Today, approximately 70% of cultivated land is destined to the production of cereals, mostly wheat, barley, rye, rice, millet, sorghum, and corn.

No other plant has influenced the history of man like wheat, whose cultivation can be dated back to 12000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, that area of the Middle East extending from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.  It dates back to 9,000 years ago the beginning of an aware selection of cereals favoring those with a stronger blade in the domestication process of triticum. 

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SOURCE: http://www.italoamericano.org

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