[Sca-cooks] Cracked Barley

[Mark S. Harris]

Anahita asked:
> BTW, has anyone actually seen a "period" recipe for barley polenta? I
> thought the historical original was with semolina... However, there's
> a wheat allergy issue at the feast (i think it's the Bard of the
> Mists own lady), so i'm trying to find a historically plausible
> substitute, and he suggested barley...

Tsk, tsk. You didn't look in the Florilegium, did you? :-)
The following is in this file:
polenta-msg       (22K) 10/ 1/01    Period polenta. Wheat and maize polenta.


> Barley Polenta
>
> (Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 18, 73, as taken from Giacosa, A Taste of
> Ancient Rome)
>
> Vicenis hordei libris ternas seminis lini et coriandri selibram salisque
> acetabulum.
>
> For each 20 librae of barley, 3 librae of linseeds and 1/2 libra of
> coriander, in addition to an acetabulum of salt.
>
>  Serves 4.
>
> 12 oz. ground barley
> 3 Tbs. linseeds
> 2 tsp. coriander
> sufficient salt
>
> Boil 1 quart of water, gradually add the ingredients, and leave to cook for
> approximately 1 hour.  Add more boiling water if the barley consumes too
> much.  A more flavorful polenta can be obtained by cooking the barley in
> meat stock or vegetable broth instead of water.


> I believe you will find polenta is used to describe cereal grains cooked
> drier than a puls and often shaped into loaves.  Apicius gives a recipe for
> wheat polenta and Cato (IIRC) gives one for barley.
>
> Bear

For more info on barley, you might look in the grains-msg file also.

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****