[Sca-cooks] Barely Barley, or True Grits

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Jadwiga's description of her feast, and her mention of "barley 
groats" reminded me...

In 2002 for the Mediterranean Tour Feast i made Pulentium using 
purchased barley grits - i'm pretty sure it was Bob's Red Mill brand.

In 2003 for the Greco-Roman feast i made Pulentium... but i couldn't 
find barley grits anywhere, and i checked several specialty shops. 
The buyer at my local Whole Foods even brought out the order books 
with lists of products from suppliers and barley grits wasn't listed. 
We cooks ended up putting whole hulled barley in a grinder of some 
sort, which broke some of them up a bit, but they weren't as fine as 
the grits. It was ok, but not as good as when made with "true grits".

I've searched the web for barley grits for sale. I went through many 
pages of Google and only found a couple commercial brands, among them 
Bob's Red Mill Barley Grits/Meal and Arrowhead Mills Bits O Barley 
Cereal.

But in checking with my local Whole Foods today, it appears the Bob's 
Red Mill doesn't have it anymore. Arrowhead Mills seems to have it in 
their catalog, but Whole Foods NoCal region doesn't have it in their 
system. That means the buyer could order it for me, but they can't 
sell it on their shelves, so i'd have to buy the whole case of 12 
24-oz pkgs for $58.50. He finally found "Mother's Quick Cooking 
Barley" (11-oz pkg for $1.19). They haven't carried it since 2000, 
but since it's in their system, he can sell it. We don't know if it's 
actually barley grits, but he ordered a case and i'll buy a bag when 
it comes in on Tuesday. (in a web-check it appears to be pearl 
barley, groan)

Barley grits show up as an ingredient in a number of cooked cereal 
blends intended for people who want or need to avoid gluten and in 
multi-grain breads, so it's being produced. I guess it wasn't selling 
enough by itself, but with so many more people eschewing wheat for 
various reasons, i thought it would still be in demand. Sigh.

Urtatim / formerly Anahita
-- 
"The truth must be taken wherever it is to be found,
whether it be in the past or among strange peoples."
	-- al-Kindi, Baghdad (801-873)