Template:Short description Template:Good article {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Template:Speciesbox
Emmer is a hybrid species of wheat, producing edible seeds that have been used as food since ancient times. The domesticated types are Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccum and T. t. conv. durum. The wild plant is called T. t. subsp. dicoccoides. The seeds have an awned covering, the sharp spikes helping the seeds to become buried in the ground. The principal difference between the wild and the domestic forms is that the ripened seed head of the wild plant shatters and scatters the seed onto the ground, while in the domesticated emmer, the seed head remains intact, thus making it easier for people to harvest the grain.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Along with einkorn, emmer was one of the first crops domesticated in the Near East. It was widely cultivated in the ancient world, but is now a relict crop in mountainous regions of Europe and Asia. Emmer is one of the three grains called farro in Italy.<ref name=GRIN>Template:GRIN</ref>
EtymologyEdit
Emmer is first attested in 1908 in English as a loanword from German {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, variant of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, from {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, 'starch', likely from Latin {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, itself borrowing from Ancient Greek Template:Transliteration.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
DescriptionEdit
Like einkorn (T. monococcum) and spelt (T. spelta), emmer is a hulled wheat, meaning it has strong glumes (husks) that enclose the grains, and a semibrittle rachis. On threshing, a hulled wheat spike breaks up into spikelets that require milling or pounding to release the grains from the glumes.<ref name="Amar 2015"/> Wild emmer spikelets effectively self-cultivate by propelling themselves mechanically into soils with their awns. During a period of increased humidity during the night, the awns of the spikelet become erect and draw together, and in the process push the grain into the soil. During the daytime, the humidity drops and the awns slacken back again; however, fine silica hairs on the awns act as hooks in the soil and prevent the spikelets from backing out. During the course of alternating stages of daytime drying and nighttime humidity, the awns' pumping movements, which resemble a swimming frog kick, will drill the spikelet Template:Convert or more into the soil.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Clear left
EvolutionEdit
Taxonomy and phylogenyEdit
Strong similarities in morphology and genetics show that wild emmer (T. dicoccoides Koern.) is the wild ancestor and a crop wild relative of domesticated emmer. Wild emmer still grows wild in the Near East. It is a tetraploid wheat formed by the hybridization of two diploid wild grasses, wild red einkorn (Triticum urartu), and the goatgrass Aegilops speltoides.<ref name="Golovnina-2007">Template:Cite journal</ref>
The botanists Friedrich August Körnicke and Aaron Aaronsohn in the late 19th-century were the first to describe the wild emmer native to Palestine and adjacent countries.<ref>Template:Cite book (first edition 1976)</ref><ref name= "Dalman2020">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Earlier, in 1864, the Austrian botanist Carl Friedrich Kotschy collected specimens of the same wild emmer, without stating where he had collected them.<ref name="Shmida2005">Template:Cite book</ref> Although cultivated in ancient Egypt, wild emmer has not been grown for human consumption in recent history,<ref name= "Dalman2020"/> perhaps owing to the difficulty with which the chaff is separated from the seed kernels, formerly requiring the spikes to be pounded with mortar and pestle.<ref name="Amar 2015">Template:Cite book</ref> Wild emmer is distinguished from common wheat by its tougher ear rachis and the beards releasing the grains easily, by their ear rachis becoming brittle when ripe and their firmly fitting beards.<ref name= "Dalman2020"/> Wild emmer grows to a height of Template:Convert, and bears an elongated spike measuring Template:Convert, with long, protruding awns extending upwards.<ref name="Shmida2005"/> Avni et al., 2017 provides a complete emmer genome.<ref name="Architecture">Template:Cite journal</ref>
History of cultivationEdit
Wild emmer is native to the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, growing in the grass and woodland of hill country from modern-day Israel to Iran. The origin of wild emmer has been suggested, without universal agreement among scholars, to be the Karaca Dağ mountain region of southeastern Turkey. In 1906, Aaron Aaronsohn's discovery of wild emmer wheat growing in Rosh Pinna (Israel) created a stir in the botanical world.<ref>Molecular Genetic Maps in Wild Emmer Wheat, Triticum dicoccoides: Genome-Wide Coverage, Massive Negative Interference, and Putative Quasi-Linkage</ref> Emmer wheat has been found in archaeological excavations and ancient tombs. Emmer was collected from the wild and eaten by hunter gatherers for thousands of years before its domestication. Grains of wild emmer discovered at Ohalo II had a radiocarbon dating of 17,000 BC and at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) site of Netiv Hagdud are 10,000–9,400 years old.<ref name="Zohary & Hopf 2000, p. 46">Template:Harvnb</ref>
The location of the earliest site of emmer domestication is still unclear and under debate.<ref name="Weide 2015"/> Some of the earliest sites with possible indirect evidence for emmer domestication during the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B include Tell Aswad, Çayönü, Cafer Höyük, Aşıklı Höyük, Template:Ill and Shillourokambos.<ref name="Weide 2015"/> Definitive evidence for the full domestication of emmer wheat is not found until the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (10,200 to 9,500 BP), at sites such as Beidha, Tell Ghoraifé, Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), Abu Hureyra, Tell Halula, Tell Aswad and Cafer Höyük.<ref name="Weide 2015">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Emmer is found in a large number of Neolithic sites scattered around the fertile crescent. From its earliest days of cultivation, emmer was a more prominent crop than its cereal contemporaries and competitors, einkorn wheat and barley.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> Small quantities of emmer are present during Period 1 at Mehrgharh on the Indian subcontinent, showing that emmer was already cultivated there by 7000–5000 BC.<ref>Possehl, Gregory. "The Indus Civilization: An Introduction to Environmental, Subsistence, and Cultural History: (2003)</ref>
In the Near East, in southern Mesopotamia in particular, cultivation of emmer wheat began to decline in the Early Bronze Age, from about 3000 BC, and barley became the standard cereal crop. This has been related to increased salinization of irrigated alluvial soils, of which barley is more tolerant,Template:Sfn although this study has been challenged.<ref>Powell, M. A. (1985) Salt, seed, and yields in Sumerian agriculture. A critique of the theory of progressive salinization. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 75, 7–38.</ref> Emmer had a special place in ancient Egypt, where it was the main wheat cultivated in Pharaonic times, although cultivated einkorn wheat was grown in great abundance during the Third Dynasty, and large quantities of it were found preserved, along with cultivated emmer wheat and barleys, in the subterranean chambers beneath the Step Pyramid at Saqqara.<ref>Jean-Phillipe Lauer, Laurent Taeckholm and E. Aberg, 'Les Plantes Decouvertes dans les Souterrains de l'Enceinte du Roi Zoser a Saqqarah' in Bulletin de l'Institut d'Egypte, Vol. XXXII, 1949–50, pp. 121–157, and see Plate IV for photo of ears of both wheats recovered from beneath the pyramid.</ref> Neighbouring countries also cultivated einkorn, durum and common wheat.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> In the absence of any obvious functional explanation, the greater prevalence of emmer wheat in the diet of ancient Egypt may simply reflect a marked culinary or cultural preference, or may reflect growing conditions having changed after the Third Dynasty. Emmer and barley were the primary ingredients in ancient Egyptian bread and beer. Emmer recovered from the Phoenician settlement at Volubilis<ref>C. Michael Hogan. 2008. Volubilis: Ancient settlement in Morocco, The Megalithic Portal, ed. Andy Burnham</ref> (in present-day Morocco) has been dated to the middle of the first millennium BC.
Emmer wheat may be one of the five species of grain which have a special status in Judaism. One of these species may be either emmer or spelt. However, it is fairly certain that spelt did not grow in ancient Israel, and emmer was probably a significant crop until the end of the Iron Age. References to emmer in Greek and Latin texts are traditionally translated as "spelt", even though spelt was not common in the Classical world until very late in its history.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Pliny the Elder notes that although emmer was called {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in his time, it had formerly been called {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (or 'glory'), providing an etymology explaining that emmer had been held in glory.<ref>Pliny the Elder. Natural History 18.3</ref> He mentions its use in sacrifices, stating that it had to be purified by roasting in order to be suitable.<ref>Pliny the Elder. Natural History 18.2</ref> He states that in Etruria emmer was first roasted, then crushed either with an iron-capped pestle, or using a handmill that was toothed on the inside. This contrasted, Pliny writes, with the rest of Italy, where either a plain pestle or a watermill was used to make it into flour.<ref>Pliny the Elder. Natural History 18.97</ref>
CultivationEdit
Today emmer is primarily a relict crop in mountainous areas. Its value lies in its ability to give good yields on poor soils, and its resistance to fungal diseases such as stem rust that are prevalent in wet areas. Emmer is grown in Armenia, Morocco, Spain (Asturias), the Carpathian mountains on the border of Czechia and Slovakia, Albania, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, Greece and Italy. It is grown in the U.S. as a specialty product. In Ethiopia, the grain is traditional.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In Italy, uniquely, emmer cultivation is well established and even expanding. In the mountainous Garfagnana area of Tuscany emmer (one of three grains known as farro) is grown by farmers as an IGP (Indicazione Geografica Protetta) product, with its geographic identity protected by law.<ref name="Richiesta di registrazione">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The demand for Italian farro has led to competition from non-certified farro, grown in lowland areas and often consisting of a different wheat species, spelt.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Cornish 2014">Template:Cite news</ref>
Food usesEdit
Emmer's main use is as food, though it is also used as fodder. Ethnographic evidence from Turkey and other emmer-growing areas suggests that emmer makes good bread (judged by the taste and texture standards of traditional bread); it was widely eaten as bread in ancient Egypt.<ref name=underutilized-crops>Hulled wheats. Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Hulled Wheats. Promoting the conservation and use of underutilized and neglected crops 4. Edited by S. Padulosi, K. Hammer, and J. Heller, 1996. Rome: International Plant Genetic Resources Institute.</ref> In Armenian cuisine, emmer pilaf is cooked in sunflower oil. The pre-cooked emmer is fried in oil and then sautéed onions are added. In the second version, boiled water and emmer are added to the sautéed onion and then cooked until tender.<ref>G. Khanbekyan. A book about the national Armenian food. For housewives. Yerevan, Armgiz, 1950. p. 80</ref> In Armenia, emmer porridge with lamb called "kashovi" is widespread in the Shirak region, while lean kashovi is known in all regions of Armenia. Chopped lamb is added to cold water then boiled for 10 minutes, emmer and sautéed onion are added and cooked over a low heat until tender.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In Italy, whole emmer grains can be found in most supermarkets and groceries, emmer bread ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) can be found in bakeries in some areas, while in Tuscany emmer has traditionally been consumed as whole grains in soup. Emmer has been used in beer production.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Emmer has antihyperglycemic properties and antioxidant activity, which could be useful as part of a diet for type 2 diabetes in its early stages.<ref name="Christopher Sarkar 2018">Template:Cite journal</ref> As with all varieties and hybrids of wheat,<ref name=FasanoSapone2015>Template:Cite journal</ref> emmer is unsuitable for people with gluten-related disorders, despite the popular claim that ancient grains contain less gluten.<ref name="Brounds 2022">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
- Trilla del trigo en el Antiguo Egipto.jpg
Threshing in ancient Egypt, where emmer was widely used for bread<ref name=underutilized-crops/>
- Castel del Piano-Minestra di farro.jpg
Template:Ill is a typical dish in Tuscany, Italy
ReferencesEdit
SourcesEdit
- Template:Cite book
- Hulled Wheats. Promoting the conservation and use of underutilized and neglected crops. 4. Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Hulled Wheats 21–22 July 1995, Castelvecchio Pascoli, Tuscany, Italy
- Template:Cite book Up-to-date reference to cereals in the Biblical world.
- Wheat evolution: integrating archaeological and biological evidence
- Alternative Wheat Cereals as Food Grains: Einkorn, Emmer, Spelt, Kamut, and Triticale
- Template:Cite journal
- Template:Cite journal
- Oldest domesticated wheat found at Abu Hureyra.
- Template:Cite journal
External linksEdit
Template:Wheat Template:Cereals Template:Taxonbar Template:Authority control