Rye is the fifth cereal in importance in the world and in the United States. It is exceeded in the world by corn, wheat, oats and rice.
Even though the grain was domesticated later than wheat, barley and its, there is more uncertainty about the history of rye than there is about some of the other cereal grains.
Some authorities believe it developed from Secale montanum Gus., a perennial weed that grows wild southern Europe and Central Asia.
It was probably was first grown as a separate crop (i.e., not in mix plantings) in southwestern Asia sometime around 1,000 BC.
It was never an important grain in this area in ancient times, but first appeared as a significant food crop in northern Europe. From there, cultivation of the grain spread southward throughout the continent and, after about the 16th century, across the southern part of Russia into Siberia.
During the Middle Ages, the poorer people of England ate bread made from rye, or from a mixture of rye and wheat, known as maslin.
It was unknown in the western hemisphere until it was brought to North America and to western South America by European settlers in the 16th and 17th centuries, and thence to the rest of South America, Australia, and South Africa.
History of Rye
