The First Grain Foods

Before human beings learned to plant, they gathered wild foods. The seeds of various wild grasses, the ancestors of modern grains, were rich in nutrients and valued by prehistoric peoples as important foods. These seeds, unlike modern grains, had husks that clung tightly to them. People learned that by toasting the seeds, probably on hot rocks, they could loosen the husks and then remove them by beating the seeds with wooden tools.

The early development of grain foods took place mostly in the eastern Mediterranean regions, because, it seems, this was an area where wild grains were especially abundant.