- This article is about the food crop. An article about the Our Gang/Little Rascals character is at Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas.
Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum common buckwheat, and Fagopyrum tataricum Tatar buckwheat) are plants in the genus Fagopyrum (sometimes classified as Polygonum) in the family Polygonaceae. They are often counted as grains, though unlike most grains they are not true grasses. Buckwheat is thus not related to true Wheat. Buckwheat is most likely descended from wild buckwheat, though it does not share its vine-like growth habit.
Common buckwheat was domesticated and first cultivated in China. It is the world's highest elevation domesticate, being that it was either domesticated in Yunnan on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau or on the Plateau itself. Archaeological remains are rare, the oldest known in China so far date to circa 2600 BC. However, buckwheat pollen is present in Japan as early as 4000 BC suggesting domestication of this plant likely occurred earlier than has been documented archaeologically. Some researchers suggest that Buckwheat was introduced to Europe along the Silk Road. Various textual documentation suggests an introduction between AD 1300-1400. Tatar buckwheat was also domesticated in the same region. While it is unfamiliar to the West, it is still eaten in the Himalayan region today.
Buckwheat is one of the few seeds consumed as flour today that does not belong to the grass family (Poaceae), and it is, thus, not actually a grain. Instead the seed is an achene, more similar to a sunflower seed, with a hard outer shell and soft innner meat. The flour is noticably darker than wheat flour, and is known (exagerratedly) as "blé noir" ("black flour") in French. Besides the seeds, from which buckwheat flour is produced, buckwheat is also a good honey plant. In Asia, the flour is made into noodles (including soba). While in Europe it is more commonly made into buckwheat groats, often known as "kasha". Buckwheat contains rutin, a medicinal chemical, used for vascular disorders; it is naturally devoid of gluten, and can thus be eaten by people who react adversly to gluten.
Buckwheat pancakes, sometimes raised with yeast, are eaten in several countries. They are known as blinis in Russia, galettes in France (especially in Brittany) and ployes in Acadia. Similar pancakes were a common food in American pioneer days. They are light and foamy. The buckwheat flour gives them an agreeably earthy, mildly mushroom-like taste.
In the past buckwheat cultivation was also used in orchards to increase the rate of pollination. Cultivation of buckwheat has declined sharply in the US. Over a million acres (4,000 km²) were harvested in 1918. By 1954 that had declined to 150,000 acres (600 km²), and by 1964, the last year that production statistics were gathered, only 50,000 acres (200 km²) were grown. In 1970 Russia grew an estimated 4.5 million acres (18,000 km²) of buckwheat.
The name 'buckwheat' or "beech wheat" comes from its triangular seeds, which resemble the much larger seeds of the beech nut from the beech tree, and the fact that it is used like wheat.
In the 1970s and 1980s, General Mills produced a sweetened, maple-flavored breakfast cereal made from buckwheat, which was marketed under the name Buc-Wheats.
References
- McGregor, S.E. 1976. Insect Pollination Of Cultivated Crop Plants, chap. 9 Crop Plants and Exotic Plants. U.S. Department of Agrigulture. As found on the website of the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center of the USDA Agrigultural Research Service.[1] (http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/book/chap9/buckwheat.html)
|
