Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitet Havre og mykotoksin 1 Tritico nihil est fertilius: «Nothing is more prolific than wheat». The cultural and cultivation history of wheat IWGS 13, BOKU, Tulln Åsmund Bjørnstad, Norwegian University of Life Sciences April 24 2017
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Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetHavre og mykotoksin 1
Tritico nihil est fertilius: «Nothing is
more prolific than wheat».
The cultural and cultivation history
of wheatIWGS 13, BOKU, Tulln
Åsmund Bjørnstad, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
April 24 2017
Take home messages
• Wheat is as deeply imbedded in the «wheat sphere» as
rice in Asia and maize in America
• The availability for all in the 20th century has affected its
elevated image
• But potentially a powerful force if invoked, cf. the Arab
Spring Eish!
• The current vogues of ancient grains, artisan bread or
gluten confirm the central image of wheat
• Combine the rich molecular biology with traditions to tell
stories of wheat to teach real human history
• Do it in text books, on bags of flour, pasta or bread… Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 2
«Nothing is more prolific than
wheat» Pliny the elder (23-79 AD), Naturalis
Historia
• Points to yield potential of
«winter wheat»:
• But demanding: No grain
… absorbs a greater
quantity of nutriment
• “the substance which
Nature destined for the
principal nutriment of man”
• To be discussed critically:
• Latin discutio, Greek
κρίσις, krisis: threshing of
grains
Pliny the elder (23-79 AD)
Naturalis Historia Book 18,
ch. 21Tittel på presentasjon 3
But emmer was more prolific under
common conditions:
• Pliny: “The most hardy kind, in the very coldest places, in
soils but half tilled or extremely hot, and destitute of
water”
• The three-month wheat (Triticum trimestre): matured in
90 days
• Isaiah 28,25: Sow wheat first, then barley, and emmer on
the margins
• Emmer means starch corn: Amelkorn, amidonier from
amylum =non-milled, amylose
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 4
And emmer (far) essential for
Roman identity and rituals
• The sacred confarreation:
• Conferred by eating the
“cake of marriage”
• Also called ador, cf.
adoration, adorable
• To Pliny far embodied
Rome’s past of modesty
and morality
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 5
Still Pliny praised «winter
wheat» for its quality
• “The very choicest, white, destitute of all flavor, not
oppressive to the stomach.
• furnishes bread of the very finest quality and the most
esteemed delicacies of the bakers”
• Naked – white – sifted – fresh
• All of which increase the price of the already scarce grain
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 6
How does wheat mark class, ethnic
identity and symbols in history?
• As subsistence in stratified Fertile Crescent societies
• As the first globally traded grain in Greece and Rome
• As food for all in the 20th century
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 7
A very brief biological history
of wheat
• The hulled wheats:
einkorn, emmer: Before
8000 BC
• The free-threshing
tetraploid wheats: Ca 7500
• The free-threshing
hexaploid wheats: Ca
7000
• The free-threshing mixed
both 4X and 6X
• The added adaptability
and quality of 6x Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 8
(Emmer map, Zaharieva et al 2010)
The names of wheat tell
history
• The white grain – compared to barley and rye : Old-
German weizzi (white), wheat/white,; Estonian nisu, milk
• The most common grain: frumentum , French
blé/froment, Germanic korn/corn, Italian grano/granum
• The ground grain, crushed, flour: Latin Triticum, Slavic
пшеница (psenica), Germanic meal
• The bread grain: Arab khubz (bread), Semitic kbd, “the
heavier of the grains”
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 9
What makes wheat white?
• By chemical absorption
(lack of yellow pigments,
PPO oxidation)
• By physical dispersion
(like bread crumb, paper,
snow)
• By social prestige and
price
• By moral or ritual purity
• By additives: Chalk the
most ancient of whiteners
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 10Noodle colours, from Dr. X. He,
CAAS, now CIMMYT
Whiteness and a demanding crop made wheat
prices high
• Mesopotamian currencies:
• 1 shekel = 180 grains of wheat = 8.3 g silver = 0.6 g gold
• Still in our speech: a grain of gold, gold standard
• The Law of Moses: the sacrifice «shall be of fine flour» of
wheat
• Sifted 11–13 times – the finest flour in Antiquity!
• Egypt: emmer the staple bread - mostly for the elite
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 11
Wheat in Middle East
religions
• Jewish and moslem traditions interpret the Tree of
knowledge in Eden as wheat
• Hafez (Persia, 1321-1389): If Adam sold the garden of
Eden for two grains of wheat, why cannot I sell the
garden of this world for one grain of barley?
• Generally, wheat has twice the value of barley
• West Asia remains the primordial wheat culture and
consumption
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 12
Wheat and Greece
• The Greek elite ate wheat, barley for the populace
• (Or the Spartans, Troy a late stronghold of einkorn)
• But Greece needed to trade wheat, from the Black Sea to
Egypt and Spain!
• Socrates: No man is fit as a statesman who does not
understand the issue of wheat
• Even more when they adopted baking from Egypt ca 500
BC
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 13
The Roman Empire was built
on wheat
• Baking and baker slaves
taken to Rome ca 178 BC
• Roman politics centered
on stable grain supplies;
• During Augustus: 320 000
citizens entitled to 5 kg of
wheat per day
• Bread and circus: freely
distributed during the
games
• Hordearii: gladiators were
fortified on barley Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 14
The tomb of Eurysaces: the
knighted ex-slave baker
The immense dimensions of
the Roman wheat supplies
• Half a million tons per year for doles only
• In winter on all roads leading to Rome
• Overseas grains to Ostia, then onto barges hauled
upstream for 16 km
• Took 4 weeks to reach the Aventino
• The biggest grain store, the EMPORIUM, was 4 times
larger than the Colosseum!
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 15
Wheat and health: an ancient
discussion
• Pythagoras, Plato and Hippocrates favoured barley bread
(cyphes)
• But Aristotle the wheat bread amylois (a white starch-
based bread?)
• Julius Caesar always had white fresh bread from his
personal baker
• Augustus “preferred black bread to honey cakes”.
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 16
The Roman Empire followed the
European winter wheat borders (and
North-Africa to the Levant)
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 17
Wheat vs rye marked national
and class identity in Europe
• Wheat and rye marked national borders, sharpened in
times of war
• French prisoners in Germany had to eat the dark rye
soldier’s bread Komissbrot: Quel sale pain! (What dirty
bread)
• Wheat and rye also marked class borders
• In Paris or London even beggars did not accept rye
• But wheat bread was often poor
• Proverb: Moitiè mie, moitiè son (half crumb, half bran):
«not so good»
• In rye lands the new-weds had a few days of wheat bread
(Semmelwoche) after the wedding
• North European proverb: To sell like hot wheat bread
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitet 18
Christian identity was always
rooted in wheat
• John 12:24: «I am the grain of wheat» - not barley
• Thomas Aquinas «only the finest white flour of wheat»
acceptable in church Eucharists
• Universal, no matter what grain is the daily staple (like
rye in Russia, tef in Ethiopia)
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 19
Wheat, maize and European identity
in the New World (Figueroa 2010)
• A continent without wheat or grapes: was it inhabitable?
• Indian corn was nourishing, but unthinkable in church
• 1523: Successful crop in Coyacan (Mexico City)
• But wheat brought trials and failures for centuries
• “A hostile environment for both wheat and Christianity”
(Acosta, 1590)
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 20
«From a single seed» (Symko 1999):
Wheat became food for all
• Red Fife,1842
• Turkey from the 1870s
• Wheat in N-America: a
historical lesson in plant
adaptation
• The hard wheat + roller
mill + steam trains & ships
made wheat for all
• Also from Russia, Ukraine,
Australia
• Breeders in Europe had to
match the hard wheatsNoregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 21
(Olmstead & Rhode 2011)
The 20th century: «White bread» means
«US middle class» (Bobrow-Strain , 2013)
• 1900-1930: White bread advocated as hygiene, science
• Dark meant unhygienic, touched by dark-skinned dirty
sweaty bakers
• “Not merely white bread, but the whitest of the white”
• “Food faddists” opposed refined and bleached flour:
“only undenatured wheat… is a true nerve, blood and
bone food.”
• 1930’s: The ready-sliced wrapped Wonder bread
prevailed
• 1940: >50% of conscripts had vitamin deficiencies
• Enriched white bread embodied national fortitude in
wartime Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 22
From white bread to white trash
• A symbol of American affluence after WWII
• In the Cold War: superior to the dark Russian bread
• The 1960s-70s: a hippie home baked tasty bread revolt
• “Eaters of Wonder bread/ must be underbred/ so little to
eat/ where’s the wheat?”
• A cheap, tasteless bread for the white trash
• Wholegrain artisan ancient grain bread for the new
aristocracy
• The image of wheat inverted!
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 23
From the sacred wheat bread
of Rembrandt and Chagall
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 24
To the desecrated baguettes
of Helion and Dali
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 25
Or «Wheatfield- a contradiction»Agnes Denes’ 2 acres of wheat on the landfill facing the Twin
Towers in Manhattan in 1982
Noregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 26
Conclusions
• Wheat is as deeply imbedded in the «wheat sphere» as
rice in Asia and maize in America
• Potentially a powerful image once invoked: The Arab
Spring Eish!
• Wheat price is not an issue of the past
• Price control of bread was lifted in France in 1987, in Italy
in 2006
• The current vogues of ancient grains, artisan bread or
gluten confirm the image of wheat
• Use the rich biology and traditions of wheat to tell stories
of wheat to teach basic human historyNoregs miljø- og biovitskaplege universitetTittel på presentasjon 27
Further reading
• «Wheat – its role in Social and Cultural life», World