Anecdote

Emmer Wheat is the grain that literally built human civilisation — the daily bread of the Egyptian pharaohs, the Roman legions, and the very first Neolithic farmers who planted the first seeds of agriculture 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent. • The oldest known evidence of Emmer cultivation comes from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Abu Hureyra in Syria, dated to approximately 9500 BCE — making Emmer one of the first two plants ever domesticated by humans (alongside Einkorn wheat) • Ancient Egyptian workers who built the pyramids at Giza received a daily ration of Emmer bread and Emmer beer — analysis of bread fragments found in tombs confirms that the famous "bread of the pharaohs" was Emmer, not modern wheat • The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder recorded that Emmer (which the Romans called far) was the only wheat used in the sacred rituals of the Fratres Arvales, the ancient Roman priesthood that performed annual sacrifices to ensure good harvests • The word "flour" itself derives from the Latin far (Emmer), via the Old French fleur de far (the finest part of Emmer) — meaning that every time modern English speakers say "flour," they are unknowingly invoking the name of this ancient grain • Emmer survived as a relict crop in the remote Garfagnana valley of Tuscany for over 2,000 years after it had been abandoned everywhere else in Europe — local farmers continued growing it simply because it produced reliable harvests on their poor mountain soils when nothing else would