Grains other than rice

[takadainotora]

What other grains would have been staple foods, particularly in the 15th and 16th centuries and would they have been eaten by choice or only out of necessity? I've seen a couple of references to barley, but I'd like to find more choices...I'm allergic to barley unless it's been malted and fermented.

Luighseach

[Saionji Shonagon]

Go here. Otagiri-dono was researching things one could do with millet:
tousando.proboards18.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=food&thread=2459&page=1

[takadainotora]

OK, just looked at the recipe for millet & sweet potato congee; that sounds good especially if it were spiced up a little more. I've had millet before with savory dishes and it's neutral enough that it soaks up other flavors well.

[solveig]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig!

May 5, 2008 23:55:21 GMT -5 takadainotora said:

What other grains would have been staple foods, particularly in the 15th and 16th centuries and would they have been eaten by choice or only out of necessity? I've seen a couple of references to barley, but I'd like to find more choices...I'm allergic to barley unless it's been malted and fermented.

Yes. There are references to barley. However, the biggest use of barley in Japan is probably toasting the kernels and using them to make a cold tea drunk during the Summer. Millet is the big cereal grain other than rice. Wheat is used in making various kinds of noodle. Wheat is often mixed with buckwheat to make soba noodles. There is also evidence for consumption of amaranth.

[Saionji Shonagon]

May 6, 2008 20:45:14 GMT -5 takadainotora said:

OK, just looked at the recipe for millet & sweet potato congee; that sounds good especially if it were spiced up a little more.

It is pretty good - and you can definitely ramp up the ginger, cinnamon, honey and sweet potato to taste.

[takadainotora]

I found some information today that suggested that rice, barley, millet and wheat were all introduced into Japan within a couple hundred years. Rice came to predominate because it was better suited to the climate and that significant wheat production didn't really happen until agriculture became established in northern Honshu where the summers aren't so wet.

[takadainotora]

I made the millet-sweet potato congee last night and took a small serving of it (maybe 2/3 of a cup) for lunch today. I also had some yogurt and fruit for lunch or after. It's now 5:45 PM, I've had a really active afternoon and I'm not hungry. Saionji-hime was absolutely right about this stuff. I think it would be great for war food.

[dianet]

*scribbling down notes for future reference.* Interesting.... What did the Congee taste like?

[Saionji Shonagon]

From tousando.proboards18.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=food&thread=2459&page=1

:

Millet-Sweet Potato Congee
www.recipezaar.com/113224


This one sounded intriguing, so I shopped with it in mind this week.

I chose to toast the millet on a cookie sheet in the oven, then rinsed and strained it through a dishtowel.

The recipe uses about half a decent sized sweet potato. The Asian sweet potato I acquired at Nob Hill Foods has a rosy skin and the inside is as hard and yellowish white as an unbaked Idaho.

I also went with two slices of ginger instead of one because I LIKE ginger. I completely forgot about the cinnamon stick while shopping, so I added a generous shake of powdered once the mixture started setting up.

The final result is, not surprisingly, the texture of couscous. Toasting lent the millet a nutty flavor that's quite pleasant. If you are expecting this to be really sweet, it's not. It's nowhere near as sweet as commercial flavored oatmeals, for example. It's much subtler. The flavor of the sweet potato itself is very delicate and the millet sucks up the ginger, cinnamon and honey very thoroughly. I would imagine that one could be more generous with the proportions of the flavorings if one wanted for a sweeter result. For that matter, a different variety of sweet potato, carrot (which can cook up quite sweet) or even apple, might be interesting if one wanted to experiment.

This recipe cooks up into enough millet to serve six. I loaded up the leftovers into a plastic container and slammed the lid on while still hot to see if the resulting condensation will keep it from turning into adobe - because, of course, I was cooking for one.

Cooking time is under an hour. I would imagine putting the millet in water before bedtime to soak would reduce cooking time significantly.

In case anyone was wondering, it's sufficiently sticky one can easily eat it with chopsticks. And yes, it is VERY filling.

[solveig]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig!

May 7, 2008 21:03:52 GMT -5 takadainotora said:

I found some information today that suggested that rice, barley, millet and wheat were all introduced into Japan within a couple hundred years. Rice came to predominate because it was better suited to the climate and that significant wheat production didn't really happen until agriculture became established in northern Honshu where the summers aren't so wet.

Ahh! Could you possibly cite your sources?

Yoshikawa &al in 食文化論 (p. 12) ISBN: 4-7679-1428-0 pretty much states that the introduction of barley was prehistoric and wheat was introduced during the Yayoi period. During the historical era, wheat shows up in Nara period documents. On page 7, Yoshikawa &al argue that rice migrated down the Korean peninsula to Japan over 2,000 years ago basically at the end of the Jomon period. Other authors place the introduction of rice as early as say 2200 years ago.

Maybe I can check some of my sources sometime tomorrow afternoon.

[takadainotora]

I'll have to see if I can find my source again; I was googling at school during my lunch break and our NIS department is fond of clearing out information on our computers that they don't think we need, so I may have lost my search history. It was not an SCA site, but a university's agricultural history page.