Moving swiftly on

  Firstly, a massive thank you to all of you who sent messages of condolences and support at this difficult time. I'm happy to tell you that after the initial shock, then anger, sadness, resignation and finally completion, I feel ready to come out of mourning and face the world again, full of the joys of someone ready to go shopping with a nice warm cuddly cheque from the insurance company. I'll keep you posted, of course. But now back to things food.

  One of the reasons I'm fascinated with grain is because of how ubiquitous it is and how long it has been with us on our journey of evolution. We were only able to start eating it once we had started cooking as it's pretty indigestible raw. ​​​​​​​

My simple knife sharpening setup. Please copy.

  Early incarnations of recipes with grain were dishes we would recognise as soups or porridge. The grains would be roasted, crushed and mixed with water then either heated with hot stones being dropped in the container of the mush or the container being placed over a fire. 

  The porridges started quite thin and eventually became the thickness we're used to seeing at breakfast. This gruel was cooked into thick pancakes on the top of stones or tiles heated in a fire and was referred to as cake. The references to cake in the bible are for exactly this type of food.

  Though our default grain is wheat, the grains used for these early cakes would have been made from whatever was prevalent at the time. It could have been wheat, millet, oats, corn etc depending on the region. The early cakes were also unleavened; that came later as you'll find out tomorrow.

  

Kirk out

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