nao57
Full Access Member
So... when I did some agriculture research on middle ages Europe as well as the period before the Colonial periods...
You find that most of the bread is NOT wheat that the common people were eating. It was often rye or barley or a mix. Only the elites had access to wheat. Personally I don't think rye tastes very good. People had less land also, and they'd be paying taxes on it etc... which meant they couldn't have wasted land or ... were constrained that it couldn't in active. So smaller land plots.
Where I'm going with this thought is... if someone was thinking about what grains to grow they could compare grain yields per square foot of these other grains against wheat.
You don't have to do this. Not trying to tell anyone what to do.
Note; that often wheat is grown next to other crops like Oats, etc and other things. So you can't entirely avoid a chemical footprint by doing alternatives since they are sometimes grown in the same fields. There's a technique for example in dry farming where they'd grow the wheat under things like oats or other things to protect the young wheat from the heat, etc.
Our family has been doing production gardening mostly. Meaning, we try to grow for production...or yield rates. So I like to look at, when I grow something how many pounds of food is it going to produce. That's very interesting and rewarding to me. Especially because it means I'm lowering the grocery bills for the other family members. So I like to compare yield rates. I like looking at the back yard and seeing tomato and cucumber plants because I know they'll produce a yield.
Most people when they do grain yield comparisons won't think to compare rye or barley yields with wheat type grain yields. It won't taste better to do non-wheat. But you could do it if you want to. Although supposedly barley was more suspectible to spoilage when wet compared to wheat. And not sure what kinds of recipes you'd do with that, because the way you'd do the bread for those 2 grains would be somewhat different than a straight wheat bread recipe.
...
Below is a cheap recipe for a fun meal for you growers of tomatoes and cucumbers...
So when you bring in your basket of grown tomatoes and cucumbers...
You then slice up potatoes, very much like English chips. Then you slice the tomatoes and cucumbers in slices also. You take 2 potato chips, then put on some mayo or whatever your local preferred seasonings are. Then put on the tomato slices, in the chip sandwich. A touch of soy sauce or sesame seed dressing also, or mustard. Then eat. With garden fresh tomatoes this is fantastic cheap meal, since most of the ingredients are home produced. You can also do this with thin slices from hard boiled egg.
You find that most of the bread is NOT wheat that the common people were eating. It was often rye or barley or a mix. Only the elites had access to wheat. Personally I don't think rye tastes very good. People had less land also, and they'd be paying taxes on it etc... which meant they couldn't have wasted land or ... were constrained that it couldn't in active. So smaller land plots.
Where I'm going with this thought is... if someone was thinking about what grains to grow they could compare grain yields per square foot of these other grains against wheat.
You don't have to do this. Not trying to tell anyone what to do.
Note; that often wheat is grown next to other crops like Oats, etc and other things. So you can't entirely avoid a chemical footprint by doing alternatives since they are sometimes grown in the same fields. There's a technique for example in dry farming where they'd grow the wheat under things like oats or other things to protect the young wheat from the heat, etc.
Our family has been doing production gardening mostly. Meaning, we try to grow for production...or yield rates. So I like to look at, when I grow something how many pounds of food is it going to produce. That's very interesting and rewarding to me. Especially because it means I'm lowering the grocery bills for the other family members. So I like to compare yield rates. I like looking at the back yard and seeing tomato and cucumber plants because I know they'll produce a yield.
Most people when they do grain yield comparisons won't think to compare rye or barley yields with wheat type grain yields. It won't taste better to do non-wheat. But you could do it if you want to. Although supposedly barley was more suspectible to spoilage when wet compared to wheat. And not sure what kinds of recipes you'd do with that, because the way you'd do the bread for those 2 grains would be somewhat different than a straight wheat bread recipe.
...
Below is a cheap recipe for a fun meal for you growers of tomatoes and cucumbers...
So when you bring in your basket of grown tomatoes and cucumbers...
You then slice up potatoes, very much like English chips. Then you slice the tomatoes and cucumbers in slices also. You take 2 potato chips, then put on some mayo or whatever your local preferred seasonings are. Then put on the tomato slices, in the chip sandwich. A touch of soy sauce or sesame seed dressing also, or mustard. Then eat. With garden fresh tomatoes this is fantastic cheap meal, since most of the ingredients are home produced. You can also do this with thin slices from hard boiled egg.
Good thought.
