On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 864

Grains, or Cereals These words are near
synonyms. Thecereals (fromCeres, the
Roman goddess of agriculture) are plants in
the grass family, the Gramineae, whose
membersproduceedibleandnutritiousseeds,
t h egrains. Butcereal is also used to mean
their seeds and products made from them —
asin“breakfastcereals”—andtheplantsare
sometimes calledgrains. The cereals and
othergrassesarecreaturesoftheopenplainor
high-altitude steppe, areas too dry for trees.
Theyliveanddieinaseasonortwo,andare
easily gathered and handled. They grow in
densely packed stands that crowd out
competition, and produce many small seeds,
relying on numbers rather than chemical
defenses to ensure that some offspring will
survive. These characteristics made the
grasses ideal for agriculture. With our help,
they have come to cover vast areas of the
globe.
Wheat,barley,oats,andryehavebeenthe


mostimportantgrainsintheMiddleEastand
Europe;inAsia,rice;intheNewWorld,
maize,orcorn;inAfricasorghumandmillets.
Thegrainsareofspecialculinarysignificance
becausetheymakepossiblebeerandbread,
bothstaplesinthehumandietforatleast
5,000years.

An oat kernel, lentils in their pod, and a
hazelnut.Allareseeds,andconsistofaliving
embryonic plant together with a food supply
to fuel its early growth. In the cereal grains,
the food supply is a separate tissue, the
endosperm. In the beans and their relatives,
andinmostnuts,thefoodsupplyfillsthefirst
two leaves of the embryo, the cotyledons,
whichareunusuallymassiveandthick.