I eat a lot of whole grains, barley among them.
You can cook most grains quickly if you parch them first. Parching barley
in a hot, dry cast iron pan makes some of the berries pop like
mini-popcorn. Most of them just split though. I sometimes parch wheat or
barely and then add just enough butter so some salt or other seasoning will
stick and then eat it as a snack. You can also parch grains and then boil
them. This changes both the flavor and texture compared to just boiling.
Cracked it cooks into a porage/mush/gruel pretty fast. I tried it once to
see what it was like, but I have a large amount of pre-cracked mixed grain
cerial so there is little sense in cracking other grains.
I have some wheat that my parents got back in 1977 and never rotated. It
tastes the same as 'new' wheat, but only about 10% or so will sprout. It
was packed in 5 gallon buckets with some dry ice to drive out the air. I'm
not sure if barely will store quite as well as wheat, but it should be close.
There is a new type of barley on the market: hulless barely, also called
nude barely. It grows without the tough hulls normal barley has. If you
want to grow your own, this would significantly reduce the work at harvest
time.
When I boil grains, I often add a bit of butter or cheese and some herbs if
it's for dinner. I'll add honey or sometimes molassus for breakfast.
One nice way to cook whole grains for breakfast is to put them in a thermos
bottle and add boiling water the night before. You'll have a fully cooked
hot breakfast as soon as you get up. I don't have a wide-mouth thermos
now, I should get one just for grains. One part grain to 2 or 3 parts
water. Add a pinch of salt too.
Millet is another grain that feeds many people in the world, but is used
less in this country than Barley is.
