POLBA AND PERISH FROM IT
Gastronomic history and recipes with photographs. Material provided by the magazine "Gastronom".
"I will serve you gloriously, diligently and very regularly, for three clicks on your forehead a year, give me a boiled spelled ..."
A. Pushkin "The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda"
Who will say now what it is about - and why did Balda choose spelled? But once in Russia spelled wheat, or spelled wheat, was no less widespread than ordinary wheat. Its grains contain more protein - that's where the strength for those "three clicks" came from!
Spelled Russian porridge was prepared "with gusto." The groats were washed in cold water, poured with boiling water (1: 1), salt was added and cooked until the water boils away, stirring constantly so that it does not burn. Then they were transferred to an earthen pot, butter and boiling milk were added, covered with a lid, and for 1.5–2 hours they were put into the oven in a pan with hot water. Porridge was served with milk and butter. Something similar can still be tried in the Caucasus, where spelled is called "zanduri".
In the 19th century, we practically stopped growing spelled wheat. Under this name, a completely different variety was often mentioned - emmer, or two-grain. Agricultural reference books of that time wrote: "Spelled was known in ancient Russian agriculture, but nowadays it is hardly cultivated anywhere in Russia, with the exception of two-grain (emmer), which is bred in some Volga provinces (Kazan, Simbirsk), but more for home use" ...
After the Second World War, it was almost forgotten - everyone except the amateurs who tried to preserve it. This continued until the 80s of the last century, when nutritionists suddenly started talking about the beneficial properties of spelled cereal. And the cooks, in addition to porridge, soup or bread, began to make airy creams from it or, sprinkled with cheese, fry in breadcrumbs. In Italy, however, risotto is traditionally prepared from spelled, and in India, Iran and Turkey, where spelled wheat also grows, absolutely unthinkable side dishes for fish and poultry. It became so popular that it even received the name "black cereal caviar".
But this is only one of the varieties of wheat. Others, no less famous, are grown in different countries. For example, soft varieties - their grains contain more starch, and flour is ideal for cereals and pies. In one of the old Russian cookbooks we read: "Take spring or winter wheat, clean it thoroughly of all foreign grains, then wash it and dry it; prepare cereal from it, as usual, large buckwheat. Porridge from these cereals is very tasty, it is boiled. on the water and serve Chukhonskoe butter to it, and whoever loves, this porridge can be cooked in milk. "
Wheat groats were also used in ceremonial cooking - from it, and not from rice, as they do today, they traditionally cooked kutya. The grains were scalded with boiling water and carefully pounded in a mortar so as not to damage them, but only to separate the shells. Then they boiled for 2-3 hours over low heat without salt and sugar, without interfering and adding boiling water when the water boiled away. The cooked and chilled wheat was laid out in a deep dish, sugar, honey, chopped walnuts or hazelnuts, raisins scalded with boiling water were added and poured with poppy milk (steamed and grated poppy seeds). In Armenia, I had a chance to taste "arisa" - a porridge made from wheat grits with chicken (less often - with turkey or lamb). It was boiled in meat broth and whipped from time to time - as a result, the meat "melted", dissolved in wheat groats, turning into a homogeneous delicious mass.She was served with fried onions, cinnamon and melted butter - oh, how good it was! Sometimes they used crushed wheat groats for cereals ... So, gradually, we got to the semolina. It turns out that it does not grow on trees and does not spike in fields or vegetable gardens - this is just a large grinding of durum wheat. And it is simply sifted out when a grain of wheat is ground into flour.
And that's all ... Remember: "Buratino closed his eyes and suddenly saw ... a plate of semolina porridge in half with raspberry jam. Opened his eyes - there is no plate ... Then Buratino guessed that he was terribly hungry." This is what you need to tell the children, persuading them to eat one more spoon "for mom and dad"! Do you want an old recipe? "Semolina porridge with almond milk" (lean): "Boil with boiling water, peel and finely grind, adding a spoonful of water, 1/4 pound of sweet and 5 pieces of bitter almonds, dilute with 2 cups of boiling water, stir, strain. Pour 4 cups into a saucepan water, add salt, 1 tbsp. l. sugar, put crushed almonds; when it boils, add 1 1/8 cups semolina, stir; when the porridge thickens and is ready, pour in a little, stirring, these 2 cups of almond milk, boil, shift in a silver saucepan, sprinkle with fine sugar, glaze over with an iron spatula. Serve the fine sugar separately. " Pay attention - in a silver saucepan, and not in some enamel bowl! Porridge demands respect for itself ...
Finally, the most famous Russian dish made from semolina is "Guryev's porridge", sung by V. A. Gilyarovsky: "The Petersburg nobility, headed by the Grand Dukes, specially came from St. Petersburg to eat ... the famous Guryev's porridge, which, by the way, had nothing to do with the Guryevsky tavern. , but was invented by some mythical Guryev. "
They prepared it like this. First, a thick porridge was cooked from semolina in milk, into which eggs, egg whites, beaten with sugar, and chopped nuts were introduced with constant stirring. The prepared porridge was laid out in a frying pan in layers (each layer was shifted with skins removed from milk, sprinkled with granulated sugar) and set for another 5–7 minutes. into a hot oven. One clever trick was used here - the porridge, before being put in the oven, was sprinkled with powdered sugar and burned with a hot metal rod (knife, knitting needle) so that dark stripes appeared on the surface. Served such beauty with canned fruits, sprinkled with grated nuts and poured over with sweet fruit sauce. Modern historians believe that the recipe for Guryev porridge belongs to the Minister of Finance of the time of Alexander I, the influential dignitary D. A. Guryev, who was famous for his dinner parties. They say that Guryev invented a dish in honor of the victory of the Russian troops over Napoleon (an attempt to defeat French cuisine at the same time?).
However, there is another legend: the count "discovered" this mess, a guest of the retired major of the Orenburg dragoon regiment Yurisovsky. And then the chef Zakhar Kuzmina, the creator of the masterpiece, bought it. Since then, the count treated his guests to an amazing porridge, and the fame of it thundered throughout Russia. (But the Europeans were unlucky with semolina - their Pinocchio ate rather
total Italian pasta ...)
The Maghreb countries have their own "celebrity" - couscous. This golden-cream-colored grits are obtained by rolling small balls of sifted coarse flour (for example, semolina), wheat flour and a small amount of water. Traditionally, this procedure is done by hand by women. The balls are sieved (so that they are the same size), and then they are steamed in a double pot-steamer ... Just imagine: fatty lamb with vegetables and spices is being cooked below, and couscous is steamed above them on fragrant steam. The groats absorb all the aromas of meat, vegetables, spices and become unusually tasty. Processed couscous is already on sale in Russian supermarkets - it must be rubbed with vegetable oil, pour boiling water over and let stand for 5 minutes. under the lid. Not so intricate and difficult, but also tasty, for example, with fried kangaroo meat (they did it, it turned out great - maybe because they did not spare spices) ...
Bulgur deserves special mention - pre-processed wheat grains, which are steamed, dried and coarsely ground: the groats are more tender than ordinary crushed wheat. Bulgur is used in the cooking of the Middle East and Mediterranean countries - most often in such famous dishes as wheat pilaf, popular in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus, and the Lebanese tabbouleh salad.
“I went to Market Street to the“ Crystal Palace ”store and bought my favorite piece - bulgur, this is such a Bulgarian crushed durum wheat, add ham, in small cubes, it will make a great dinner” ... maybe the translator) is not quite right. Bulgur has nothing to do with Bulgaria - this word is translated from Greek as "to press", "to process". And about dinner - that's right ...
Concluding the story about wheat, I will note that millet porridge has nothing to do with it and is prepared from a completely different cereal - millet. And don't be fooled by one of its English names - French wheat: the English and the French traditionally dislike each other, because of this, all sorts of mistakes arise ...
By the way
The ancient Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus says that the Romans considered spelled to be the most ancient and most valuable of cereals - it was not for nothing that they burned it at the beginning of all sacrifices. In Rome, there was a sacred marriage ceremony - "confarreatio", which was performed without fail in the presence of the priest of Jupiter and ten patrician witnesses. During the solemn ceremony, spelled bread (panis farreus) was sacrificed, from which the name of the ceremony originated.
Today spelled in the West is sold in health food stores. Americans add it to soups, use it instead of rice - the grains are soaked overnight and boiled for 50 minutes.
