Bread Barley Research Articles

Effects of flour from different barley varieties on barley sour dough bread

Twenty flours from 16 different barley varieties cultivated in 1990 and 1992, and a Swedish reference flour, were fermented by Lactobacillus plantarum A1 to sour doughs. Barley breads ( 40% barley 60% wheat flour ) from each flour type were baked with and without an admixture of barley sour dough in order to investigate how the sour dough admixture would affect the baking properties. A trained panel carried out sensory evaluation by conventional profiling on breads made from three of the barley varieties and the Swedish reference flour, made with and without sour dough admixture. The barley varieties influenced both the sour dough properties and the properties of the barley bread. The pH of bread with sour dough ranged from 4.6 to 4.8 as compared to 5.4 to 5.6 in bread without sour dough. The acidity of the breads with sour dough ranged from 4.1 to 5.0 ml NaOH/ 10 g bread crumb as compared to 2.4 to 3.6 in breads without sour dough. In 14 of the twenty bread types an addition of sour dough lowered the bread volume. Breads with a sour dough admixture scored higher for total taste and acidulous taste than breads without sour dough. The β-glucan content of the flours had no significant influence on the sour dough or the sensory characteristics of the bread, except for the breadcrumb colour.

Barley Flour Level and Salt Level Selection for a Whole‐grain Bread Formula

ABSTRACTThual hull‐less barley from Alaska and Tennessee was ground into whole‐grain flours (10.5 and 14.4% protein, respectively). A potentially feasible bread formula was identified from response surfaces depicting effects of barley and salt levels within barley source on dough development parameters. Breads containing 20% barley, 30% whole‐wheat and 50% bread flours and 2.0% salt were prepared from each flour; a control contained 50:50 whole‐wheat:bread flour with 2% salt. Barley decreased specific loaf volume 5–6%. Instron hardness, cohesiveness, springiness, and chewiness were similar; lower protein barley bread was more gummy than the control. Overall flavor, appearance, and texture acceptability did not differ. Barley bread as prepared was feasible, suggesting the usefulness of response surfaces in formula development.

The Legumes: The Earliest Domesticated Plants in the Near East?

The Near East was a major nuclear area in which agriculture was adopted as a survival strategy about io,ooo years ago. Archaeological and palaeobotanical studies over the last three decades have been aimed at testing the various models proposed to explain the emergence of farming societies. In particular, research has concentrated on clarifying the origins, genetic changes, anrd methods of planting and harvesting of cereals. This focus is not surprising, as wheat and barley breads have been staples throughout the region's recorded history. Pulses, although recognized as important, have received much less attention (but see Renfrew 1973, Zohary and Hopf 1973, Ladizinsky and Adler 1976, and Ladizinsky 1979). The widespread use of legumes throughout the Mediterranean basin at the dawn of agriculture is inferred from the distribution of their wild ancestors and the variety of regions in which they have been transformed into domesticated plants: pea (Pisum sativum) and horsebean (Vicia faba) in the Levant (Ben-Zeev and Zohary 1973, Kislev i985), lentil (Lens culinaris) and chickpea (Cicer arietinum) in Anatolia (Ladizinsky 1979, Ladizinsky and Adler 1976), chickling vetch (Lathyrus sativus) in the Balkan Peninsula, flat-podded vetchling (L. cicera) in southwestern Europe (Kislev n.d.), and such so-called less important legumes as V. narbonensis in the Near East (Scheibe 1934) and Lens nigricans in southern Europe (Ladizinsky and Braun i983). Because of their superior nutritional value, early ripening, and wide environmental distribution, pulses may perhaps have been cultivated earlier than cereals in the Near East and served as a model for the raising of additional crops. Current views on the history of plant domestication rely on the scanty archaeobotanical evidence and the historical evolution of agricultural economies. On the basis of radiometric dates, most authorities agree that the domestication of cereals and pulses occurred during the 8th and 7th millennia b.c. (Renfrew i969, Zohary and Hopf 1973, van Zeist 1976, Hopf i983). Whereas wild and domesticated wheat and barley are readily distinguished morphologically this is not the case for pulses. Therefore, when the latter are uncovered in archaeological deposits, it is difficult to determine whether they were cultivated or gathered. It is generally assumed that wild pulses and wild cereals, along with various other seeds, nuts, tubers, herbs, etc., formed the vegetal diet of Epi-Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers in the Levant, but because of the absence of plant remains in most sites of this period this assumption has not been verified.2 Ethnographic data indicate that prehistoric Mediterranean people, like other mid-latitude human groups, were predominantly gatherers of vegetal foodstuffs (Gaulin and Konner 1977). We suggest that these hunter-gatherers' intimate knowledge of the vegetation enabled them, in a later period, to enter into new relationships involving the propagation and cultivation of selected species. The presence of grinding stones in the Levantine Upper Palaeolithic and pounding tools (mortars and pestles) in Epi-Palaeolithic sites (Bar-Yosef i980, I98I) testifies to the possible use of wild seeds as part of the vegetal diet. This contention is supported by measurements of Sr/Ca ratios in skeletal remains from sites of these periods (Sillen I984). Such preadaptations were necessary for the evolution of subsistence strategies into the manipulation of the reproduction and growth of some plants that heralded what we generally call the Agricultural Revolution. Among the annuals of the eastern Mediterranean, it is the cereals and the pulses that produce the best edible seeds for humans. Other species, such as Chenopodium album, also yield seeds in the late spring and early summer, but these are often smaller and more difficult to process into food (Helbaek I960). Cereals and pulses differ in various respects, and these differences may have been crucial for the decision making of prehistoric gatherers. Cereals grow in large natural stands that cover hundreds of hectares in the oak-pistachio belt of the Near East (Harlan and Zohary I963). Pulses are basically dispersed within the same Mediterranean shrubland but in smaller patches. Cereals ripen and can be harvested from early May until the end of June, depending on topography and location. Pulses ripen in March-April, generally a month before the cereals (Gophna and Kislev 1979, Plitmann and Kislev n.d.). Within the same patch not all the pods ripen at the same time, a trait enabling a second harvesting if the plants are not uprooted. The collection of wild cereals has few requirements. Hand picking and a basket are sufficient. Plucking the

Oatbread in North Staffordshire

AbstractOatbread-making and eating is a flourishing tradition in the Pottery towns of North Staffordshire. Isolated and self-reliant, the Six Towns have developed and retained their own urban individuality, in some cases built upon inherited rural traditions. Oatbread—called oatcake and made from thin runny batter—is one such case.Immediately to the north and west of the Six Towns lie the Staffordshire and Derbyshire fringes of the Pennine moorlands, whose climate and configuration imposed a dependence upon oatbread, and to a lesser extent barley bread, as a staple similar to that of the rest of the Pennine world. This dependence was touched upon somewhat cursorily by most of the writers of general, social and agricultural accounts of the area in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

BREAD FROM SORGHUM AND BARLEY FLOURS

SUMMARYVarious additives were examined as possible aids in making bread from sorghum and barley flours. Good rise was achieved with doughs containing 45% solids. Several gums, especially 4000 centipoise methylcellulose, increased gas retention in sorghum bread and improved texture of both sorghum and barley breads. Several starches improved texture and loaf volume of sorghum bread. Glyceryl monostearate (GMS) improved the texture of sorghum bread but caused it to crumble badly. GMS improved softness in barley bread. Shortenings also softened sorghum and barley breads. The effect of several processing variables on sorghum bread was studied along with 2 methods of imparting a sour fermented flavor to sorghum bread.

St. Jerome and Vitamin A

THE following passage, taken from St. Jerome's "Life of St. Hilarion", which was written about A.D. 392, appears to be the earliest account of the etiology, symptoms and cure of severe vitamin A deficiency. "From his thirty-first to his thirty-fifth year he had for food six ounces of barley bread, and vegetables slightly cooked without oil. But finding that his eyes were growing dim, and that his whole body was shrivelled with an eruption and a sort of stony roughness (impetigine et pumicea quadam scabredine) he added oil to his former food, and up to the sixty-third year of his life followed this temperate course, tasting neither fruit nor pulse, nor anything whatsoever besides."