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> Unfortunately, European-derived cultures are so downstream of professional milling that the ultimate role of parching grain in the agrarian revolution has bee

> Unfortunately, European-derived cultures are so downstream of professional milling that the ultimate role of parching grain in the agrarian revolution has been lost in the popular mind. In my part of the UK parched peas are a common autumnal food, just a small counter-point. > This is totally understandable given that for centuries in Europe it was broadly illegal for peasants to mill their own grain. The feudally-entitled miller was actually allowed to destroy any querns that he found to prevent defection. I had no idea about this, and because it sounds like it could be bullshit, I had to look it up: https://www.eskdalemill.co.uk/history/mills-in-the-lake-district/ https://www.eskdalemill.co.uk/history/mills-in-the-lake-dist... > Building a mill allowed the feudal lords of the manor to control an essential activity by establishing a monopoly. The medieval community would have been forced to grind their grain at the mill that belonged to the lord of the manor. The miller would take a fraction of each farmer’s grain as payment, commonly a tenth or twelfth. Forcing their tenants to grind corn in the manorial mill generated income – huge sums it has been claimed.

californiadreem 4y ago
There's also a single mill in Scotland producing traditional peasemeal made from parched peas. Milled parched grain is also recognized currently as traditional foods in Swabia (musmehl), Tibet (tsampa), Mexico (pinole), North Africa (frikkeh), and South America (máchica). It's probably elsewhere as well, but hasn't been well-publicized on the Internet. So it's not totally absent but not as ubiquitous as it should be treated in the popular mind. People think American-style breakfast cereals are products of the Industrial Revolution, but really it's the disnial* of parched grain. Cheerios are just toasted oats extruded into regular shapes. It's similar to how coca-cola is just basically just non-alcoholic mulled wine/ale. --- * "This peculiar and specific act — the enclosure of commonwealth culture for the benefit of a sole or corporate owner — is close kin to what could be called imperial plagiarism, the free use of Third World or “primitive” artworks and styles by more privileged (and better-paid) artists. [...] And for every James Joyce or Woody Guthrie or Martin Luther King Jr., or Walt Disney, who gathered a constellation of voices in his work, there may seem to be some corporation or literary estate eager to stopper the bottle: cultural debts flow in, but they don’t flow out. We might call this tendency “source hypocrisy.” Or we could name it after the most pernicious source hypocrites of all time: Disnial." https://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/the-ecstasy-of-influence/ https://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/the-ecstasy-of-influence...

californiadreem 4y ago

There's also a single mill in Scotland producing traditional peasemeal made from parched peas. Milled parched grain is also recognized currently as traditional foods in Swabia (musmehl), Tibet (tsampa), Mexico (pinole), North Africa (frikkeh), and South America (máchica). It's probably elsewhere as well, but hasn't been well-publicized on the Internet. So it's not totally absent but not as ubiquitous as it should be treated in the popular mind. People think American-style breakfast cereals are products of the Industrial Revolution, but really it's the disnial* of parched grain. Cheerios are just toasted oats extruded into regular shapes. It's similar to how coca-cola is just basically just non-alcoholic mulled wine/ale. --- * "This peculiar and specific act — the enclosure of commonwealth culture for the benefit of a sole or corporate owner — is close kin to what could be called imperial plagiarism, the free use of Third World or “primitive” artworks and styles by more privileged (and better-paid) artists. [...] And for every James Joyce or Woody Guthrie or Martin Luther King Jr., or Walt Disney, who gathered a constellation of voices in his work, there may seem to be some corporation or literary estate eager to stopper the bottle: cultural debts flow in, but they don’t flow out. We might call this tendency “source hypocrisy.” Or we could name it after the most pernicious source hypocrites of all time: Disnial." https://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/the-ecstasy-of-influence/ https://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/the-ecstasy-of-influence...