Ep. 43 Cereal

This week I take a look at cereal! Come along for the ride as I ask, cereal, how did that happen? Wikipedia defines cereal as any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain.  The roman goddess Ceres, who was the protector of grain is where we get the term cereal. Roman Goddess Ceres The early neolithic or New Stone Age shows evidence that they would process grains all the way back then too. Wheat originated in the cradle of civilization in the Tigris & Euphrates river valley near present day Iraq. Archeological findings show that wheat first occurred in parts of Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, the Levant, Israel, Egypt and Ethiopia. Domesticated Einkorn wheat in Turkey dates back to 9,000 B.C. Evidence of the existence of wild barley (Hordeum sp) goes as far back as 23,000 B.C. Cultivation of wheat began to spread beyond the Fertile Crescent after about 8000 BC. Wheat reached Greece, Cyprus and India by 6500 BC, Egypt shortly thereafter, followed by introductions in Germany and Spain by 5000 BC.  The early Egyptians were developers of bread and with the use of oven technology, developed baking into one of the first large-scale food production industries.  By 3000 BC, wheat had reached England, and Scandinavia. A millennium later it reached China. Recent findings of wheat grains in the Kunming area of Yunnan Province, China date the wheat at around 4000 BC.  These processed grains would be used to make things like oatmeal, porridge, gruel and other warmed grain based cereals. This would continue for thousands of years until civilization modernized. The idea of breakfast in the household has changed over time. In the Middle Ages breakfast could be something as simple as a chunk of bread and a bit of wine. As time went on other things were added to the menu such as anchovies and fish fillets. Ferdinand Schumacher Ale Anchovies - smoked or preserved. Beef Beer Bread - any variety. Cheese Herring - smoked or preserved. Salmon - smoked or preserved. Salt Fish - preserved pieces of filleted ling, hake, cod, or whiting. Sop in Wine - toast or bread in wine. Trout - smoked or preserved. Wine One that may be well known is the kippered herring  from Britain. It was breakfasts like these that were popular when inventors went looking for more healthy breakfast alternatives. Modern Cereal Food reformers in the 19th century called for cutting back on excessive meat consumption at breakfast. They explored numerous vegetarian alternatives. Ferdinand Schumacher, a German immigrant, began the cereals revolution in 1854 with a hand oats grinder in the back room of a small store in Akron, Ohio.  Ferdinand Schumacher was born in Celle, Hanover, Germany March 30, 1822, son of a merchant. He completed high school locally, and apprenticed in the grocery business. He pursued this, and clerked in a manufacturing business until age 28, when he and his brother Otto emigrated to the United States. He farmed for two years and established a grocery trade in Akron, Ohio in 1852. Remembering that back in Germany he used to grind oats and sell them as breakfast food.  He decided to do the same in Akron, Ohio and in 1854, Ferdinand Schumacher started selling his oatmeal, and from there it branched out to the rest of the United States His German Mills American Oatmeal Company was the nation's first commercial oatmeal manufacturer.  In 1877, Schumacher adopted the Quaker symbol, the first registered trademark for a breakfast cereal.  In 1863, James Caleb Jackson, a religiously conservative vegetarian who ran a medical sanitarium in western New York, created a breakfast cereal from graham flour dough that was dried and broken into shapes so hard they needed to be soaked in milk overnight. He called it granula. John Harvey Kellogg, a surgeon who ran a health spa in Michigan, later made a version and named it granola.  KELLOGG John Harvey Kellogg John Kellogg,