Pounding and grinding
Grinding versus pounding.
Hands up. Who can really say what grist, pottage, meal, flour, gruel, and dozens of other words meant in the past? Well, I can’t either, at least not without a bit of research.
We are so far from the first thousands of years of grain eating that words like this just crop up as oddities in the Bible or Homer. We are so far from familiarity with grindstones and pestles and mortars that we have no real way to talk about them.
And thank goodness. Grinding and pounding are some of the heaviest tasks humans have ever undertaken. So much best left behind unless you an obsessed historian.
Several commentators have said that they are sure people pound grains. And they are absolutely right.
Pounding grains can do several things but the most important thing it can do is to remove the protective (that is tough as all get out) hull of the grain. When humans first began to use grains, almost all of them had one of these tough outer coverings. Thanks to clever genetic modifications by early farmers (thank you, thank you) most wheat, for example, no longer has that tough outer covering that deterred all the predators except humans.
We charged in with pestles and mortars, no not the dinky little things in our kitchens that aren’t much good for anything, but hollowed out tree trunks and pestles higher than the pounder herself.
They raised the pestle in their arms, letting it fall, catching it after it crushed the outer covering but before it smashed the grain.
Then they winnowed, getting rid of the hulls.
Only then could they grind. Pound, then grind. Yes.
Wait for a couple of archaeologists’ diagrams.
Right, but naked wheat has been around for 3,000 years at least and doesn’t require pounding, only threshing. Millet, Hulled Wheat (Einkorn, Emmer, Spelt), buckwheat, barley, sorghum (and maize for that matter), can all be processed to an edible form by pounding, without going onto grinding to a flour. Even in modern Western European setting, when you see recipes for emmer or barley they will most likely be used in a gruel, not for bread.
But the fact remains that people processed Emmer by pounding, then ground it to produce flour, then made bread from it. Seems to be a poor use of resources, unless I am missing something. Was it a status thing? The Romans had bread but a lot of people ate puls, which is gruel. .
In modern Mexico very poor women grind maize to produce flour (or is it exclusively Masa?) which is make into bread. In terms of resources why not just stick to pozole? Or is this wrong and the use of the Metate did or still did indicate a higher status then eating pozole? Metate were used as grave good were they not?
Imagine, hulled varieties of grains which needed to be hummelled, whether intended for human or animal consumption. And the dehulling was required many times in order to remove bitter or toxic substances, to increase storage life, to make them easily cooked ingredients. Then, the grains needed to be grinded, crushed, soaked or boiled. Hard, hard days.
so much for the easy life of civilization!
I wonder which is actually more time and energy consuming, processing cereals like wheat (hulled or otherwise) or processing quinoa?
Ciao. Missing out on a few days of posts is like walking out of a lively dinner party , when you walk back in, there is no telling where the conversation will be going!
Thinking pragmatically, wouldn’t the advantage of bread be portablitiy and the ability to make enough ahead of time so that other days you have the freedom to do other things? You can stash bread in the aptly named rucksack and head out to tend sheep.
Here’s a ‘beer’ question: can you make beer from the discarded husks of the wheat? Would they ferment? Or is there enough fermentation in the residue water from malted grain to make beer? I don’t know enough about beer, but it seems likely that not wanting to waste anything…water, husks, etc. would contribute to the evolution of a fermented, calorie enriched beverage. (Do husks have nutrients?)
And to have some fun while pondering the lot of women consigned to pounding grain, remember the film Riso Amaro (Bitter Rice).
Pounding rice in the Po valley is apparently a very lusty endeavor.
I think the portability is a big advantage. In the Epic of Gilgamesh there’s a nice description of how bread changes over the course of the week until it is no longer good to eat.
I don’t think the husks would be much use. To make an alcohol from grains you have to start by turning the starches into sugars by some means or other. I don’t have my reference books with me in Mexico City but I’m pretty certain there wouldn’t be enough starch in the husks.
Pounding and grinding both seem to get men worked up. All those swinging tits perhaps? All those pestles pumped in and out of mortars!