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The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 4 (of 6) cover

The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 4 (of 6)

Chapter 25: CHAP. 23.—THE MODE OF GRINDING CORN.
By the Elder Pliny
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The text compiles practical and encyclopedic guidance on crop cultivation and plant uses, beginning with cereals and farm management — types of grain, sowing and harvesting schedules, ploughing, seed selection, storage, and maladies — plus weather and stellar prognostics for agricultural timing. It proceeds to flax and garden plants, detailing varieties, planting and processing methods, garden layout, and pest and disease remedies. The final section assembles medicinal preparations and numerous remedies derived from vegetables and herbs, listing applications and recipes for treating ailments using garden-grown plants.

CHAP. 23.—THE MODE OF GRINDING CORN.

All the grains are not easily broken. In Etruria they first parch the spelt in the ear, and then pound it with a pestle shod with iron at the end. In this instrument the iron is notched209 at the bottom, sharp ridges running out like the edge of a knife, and concentrating in the form of a star; so that if care is not taken to hold the pestle perpendicularly while pounding, the grains will only be splintered and the iron teeth broken. Throughout the greater part of Italy, however, they employ a pestle that is only rough210 at the end, and wheels turned by water, by means of which the corn is gradually ground. I shall here set forth the opinions given by Mago as to the best method of pounding corn. He says that the wheat should be steeped first of all in water, and then cleaned from the husk; after which it should be dried in the sun, and then pounded with the pestle; the same plan, he says, should be adopted in the preparation of barley. In the latter case, however, twenty sextarii of grain require only two sextarii of water. When lentils are used, they should be first parched, and then lightly pounded with the bran; or else, adopting another method, a piece of unbaked brick and half a modius of sand211 should be added to every twenty sextarii of lentils.

Ervilia should be treated in the same way as lentils. Sesame should be first steeped in warm water, and then laid out to dry, after which it should be rubbed out briskly, and then thrown into cold water, so that the chaff may be disengaged by floating to the surface. After this is done, the grain should again be spread out in the sun, upon linen cloths, to dry. Care, however, should be taken to lose no time in doing this, as it is apt to turn musty, and assume a dull, livid colour. The grains, too, which are just cleaned from the husk, require various methods of pounding. When the beard is ground by itself, without the grain, the result is known as “acus,”212 but it is only used by goldsmiths.213 If, on the other hand, it is beaten out on the threshing-floor, together with the straw, the chaff has the name of “palea,” * * * * and in most parts of the world is employed as fodder for beasts of burden. The residue of millet, panic, and sesame, is known to us as “apluda;” but in other countries it is called by various other names.