Ancient oats

Oats (Avena spp.) were one of the first cereals cultivated by man. They were first grown as weeds in barley and wheat fields in Mesopotamia in about 10,500 BC, though in cloudier, wetter and cooler Europe, oats were selected for cultivation over wheat and barley by about the 7000 BC.

The ancient Greeks are believed to be the first people to have made a recognizable porridge from oats.

Oats were also weeds in ancient fields of wheat and barley in the Near East and certain of them came to be cultivated, though at what date remains uncertain. The Roman historian, Pliny, complained that oats were a highly aggressive weed in cereal crops planted in moist environments though Pliny noted that oats were good for forage production.

In China oats were cultivated already in Han times. Some says that the early oats of China were Avena nuda, presumably introduced from an east European center of domestication.
Ancient oats

George Washington and cultivation of oats

Before the American Revolution, tobacco was the crop most Virginians grew and sold to English and Scottish merchants. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, however, many farmers began growing grains like wheat, corn and oats. These crops took fewer workers to grow, did not deplete the nutrients in the soil the way tobacco did, and were in great demand in Europe and the West Indies

George Washington was born in Virginia on February 22, 1732. Washington very much loved his home at Mt. Vernon. There he enjoyed farming the land and caring for his livestock.

Washington tried ideas and methods in agriculture that were new and different. Some of the most important and fundamental aspects of American agriculture were first developed by George Washington. George Washington in his diary for 1764 recorded that he sowed “a few oats to see if they would stand the winter.”

In 1786, 22 years later, he seeded 580 acres of oats, presumably at Mt. Vernon, Virginia. It possibly was of the Winter Turf type. Winter Turf is considered a gray oat in America, but often is somewhat variable in intensity of coloring, depending on weather conditions and stage of maturity at harvest.

Although most winter oats in the United States were derivatives of "Red Rustproof," one notable exception exists. This is Wintel Turf, or "Virginia Gray," an A. sativa type, apparently introduced into Virginia from England some two centuries ago. Growing grains like oats took less time, and the growing season was much shorter. Oats required little attention between planting in early spring and harvesting in June and July.
George Washington and cultivation of oats

First oats in United States

The earliest records on cultivated oats refer to two types, namely,oats which were used for breadmaking and oats sown particularly for fodder.

While these ancient plants were probably weeds, cultivated oats were discovered in Switzerland during the Bronze Age period (2000 to 700 BC).

The oat plant was introduced into the North American colonies soon after the Europeans had settled there.

European colonists sewed oats in North America for the first time in 1602 on Elizabeth Island, off the Massachusetts coast. One of the explorers who planted oats on Elizabeth Island was Bartholomew Gosnold. Oats have been sown by Gosnold, as early as 1602, and cultivated to greater or less extent from that time to the present.

The westward movement of oat culture into Mississippi valley became rapid during 1870s. The Dutch grew oats in New Netherland by 1828 and oats were cultivated in Virginia prior to 1648.
First oats in United States

Oats in Scotland

Long before the Scots, Neolithic farmers cultivated oats and prepared porridge. Porridges were an easy way to cook the grains. The grain only had to be cracked, not completely ground into flour. Evidence of these porridges suggests it was a very dense food.

Oatmeal is widely identified with Scottish food and indeed is its culinary leit‐motiv for the many tourists who visit a proud land. Scotland is thought to be where the trend of eating oat porridge for breakfast began.

Oatcakes are by many considered the national bread of Scotland. They are made almost entirely of oats. They were even baked by the Romans in Scotland in the 1st century. In the 14th century Scottish soldiers carried a metal plate and a sack of oatmeal. They would heat the plate over the fire, moisten a bit of oatmeal and make a cake.

Until late in the 19th century, oats was a basic food mainly in Scotland and Wales, in other parts of the world, the majority of crops produced were fed to animals. In Samuel Johnson's dictionary, oats were defined as “eaten by people in Scotland, but fit only for horses in England”.

Scottish settlers were credited with bringing oatmeal to North America. During the early nineteenth century, most oatmeal was imported from Scotland and sold primarily in pharmacies. U.S. cookbooks from that era either omitted oatmeal recipes or suggested it as a food for the infirm.
Oats in Scotland

History of oats in North America

Oats were cultivated in Switzerland and Northern Europe by 2500 BC, and two millennia later they were widely cultivated in Europe by the ancient Roman, Germans and Celts.

Oats were introduced by the Spanish into the southern part of North America and into the northern part of the continent by the English and North Europeans. Oats were first brought to North America by early explorers such as Captain Bartholomew Gosnold with other grains in 1602 and planted on the Elizabeth Islands off the coast of Massachusetts.

The Dutch grew oats in New Netherland by 1626 and oats were cultivated in Virginia prior to 1648. Oats were generally grown throughout colonial America mainly for animal feed but Scottish, Dutch and other immigrants used them in their traditional porridges, puddings, and baked goods.

As early as 1786, George Washington sowed 580 acres to oats. By the 1860s and 1870s, the westward shift of oat acreage in the United States had moved into the middle and upper Mississippi Valley, which is its major area of production today.

Most oats grown in North America today descend from Russian, Swedish and Greek ancestors. Oats were not widely consumed in North America until the late 19th and early 20th century when the health benefits of oats were more widely understood, due in part to the efforts of physician like Dr. John Kellogg.
History of oats in North America

German Mills American Oatmeal Company

In 1850, Ferdinand Schumacher, a German settler, opened a grocery store in Akron, Ohio. His major customers were German and Irish immigrants, and they bought a lot of oats.

He started the cereals turnaround in 1854 with a hand grains grinder in the back area of his not so large store, which produced 20 180-Ib barrels of oatmeal daily with a water-powered stone mill. His plan was to introduce steel-cut oats to the American diet at a time when oats were considered inappropriate for anything but horses.

His German Mills American Oatmeal Company was the nation’s foremost profit-oriented gruel producer. Sales were brisk, particularly to cities with large immigrant populations so Schumacher opened additional mills to meet the increasing demand in 1883.

In 1877, Schumacher embraced the Quaker sign the foremost recorded brand for a morning meal breakfast food.

In 1878 Schumacher imported porcelain rollers from England to manufacture rolled oats.

In the early of 1860s, during the Civil War, the government found oats to be relatively inexpensive, accessible and nourishing and ordered hundreds of barrels from him to fortify the Union troops.

When the war ceased in 1865, oats were becoming an increasingly familiar commodity on American breakfast tables. German Mills American Oatmeal Company would later merge several times with other companies, with the result being the Quaker Oats Company.
German Mills American Oatmeal Company

Oats in Middle East

Oats known today were probably cultivated from wild oats by farmers in the Middle East and Europe around 4500 years ago. Oats may have appeared as weeds in wheat and barley field in the Middle East.

Some archeologists determined that one of the first oat harvests was in the Middle Eastern region of the Mediterranean Sea, for reason of rich soil and ease of access to water for irrigation.

Some of the first evidence of oats was found in ancient Egypt. The history of oats is somewhat clouded because there are so many different species and subspecies, which makes identification of old remains very difficult.

Oats appear to have been domesticated from the world grasses native to the mountainous are running from the southern border of Turkey of the Soviet Union with Afghanistan. Oats are better able to withstand harsh growing conditions than wheat and barley. This made oats a valuable grain for feeding the poor who live in disadvantage regions.

The chief modern center of greatest variety of forms is in Asia Minor where most all subspecies are in contact with each other. Many feel that the area with the greatest diversity of types is most likely where a particular plant originated. Historians suggested that oat culture expanded to the north from its Asia Minor centre of origin as a weed mixture in cultivated emmer and einkorn, which are less adapted to northern latitudes than oats and died out while oats thrived in the new environment.
Oats in Middle East

Ancient history of oats

Oat seed have been found on 4000 year old remains in Egypt, but these were probably from weeds and not from cultivated.

Oats were first cultivated in Switzerland and to a slight extent in Denmark. The oldest known cultivated oat remains were found in caves in Switzerland that date back to around 1000 BC.

Oats was known in the Bronze Age in Europe and Romans writers like Cato, Ovid and Cicero often refer to it. Marcus Tullius Cicero suggested its used for medicinal purpose.

Oats became important only during the Roman Iron Age. It was increasingly to the fore from the first century AD onward.

In ancient times, both Greeks and the Romans spurned oats in favor of wheat. During that times oat seeds often contaminated wheat and as the soil became exhausted the wheat grew less successfully and the oat became dominant since it required less fertile soil.

The Greeks and Romans also know how to appreciate oatmeal. They used to make a kind gruel which a thinner version of porridge tatty may be often drunk than eaten.

Pliny the Romans author said that Germans grow oats and that a ‘porridge’ made from oats is their staple diet.

Englishman once thought oats were fit only for horse feed, while Scottish have long favored oats as a sustaining cereal.

Scottish favorite an old fashioned breakfast of porridge oats. They shared their oatmeal with their border collies, collies and sheep dogs.

When oats arrived in the New World, Americans grew its primarily as horse feed – that is until two temperature developed a machine that could be easily cut it groats, or whole oats, into a steel-cut oatmeal for a palatable cereal.
Ancient history of oats

Dry Milling History of Oats

Dry Milling History of Oats
Dry milling techniques were in used by North and South American Indians in ancient times.

Hand held stones were used initially, but a later development was one-hand held stone ground against a concave bedstone.

A further development of this was the hominy block, fashioned from two trees the stump of one being hollowed out as a mortar and the springy limp of another nearby serving as a pestle.

The name ‘hominy’ is derived from a North American Indian word and it describe a coarse ground maize meal mixed with milk or water.

It persists today, applied to some of the products of modern maize dry milling, e.g., ‘hominy feed’ and ‘hominy grits’.

Later development in dry processing of maize included the quern, a device common to the processing of many types of grain in Roman times.

Quern consisted of two stones; the upper ‘capstone; being rotated over the stationary ‘netherstone’.

Grain was introduced through a hole in the center of the capstone and it was ground by the abrasive action of the two stones, as it was worked towards the outside, to be collected as a coarse meal.

Today, dry milling is carried out in several ways, the simplest being the production of a coarse ‘wholemeal’ of 85-95% extraction, in small grist meal. Because it includes the embryo the meal has a limited shelf life.
Dry Milling History of Oats

History of Avena Sativa

Food History
Oats didn’t come important to human being as early s wheat or barley. Perhaps the oldest oats grain was found in Egypt among remains of the 12th Dynasty, which was about 2000BC. The oldest known cultivated oats were found in cave in Switzerland that are believed belong to Bronze Age.

They were the last of the major cereal grains to be domesticated, around 3,000 years ago in Europe, Greeks and Romans considered oats to be nothing more than a diseased version of wheat.

Oats were a lowly horse food for the Romans, who scoffed at the "oat-eating barbarians", or those pesky Germanic tribes who eventually toppled the West Roman Empire.

The history of oats is somewhat clouded because there are so many different species and subspecies, which makes identification of old remains very difficult. The chief modern center of greatest variety of form is in Asia Minor.

Oats were first brought to North America with other grains in 1602 and planted on the Elizabeth Islands off the coast of Massachusetts. As early as 1786, George Washington sowed 580 acres to oats.

By the 1860s and 1870s, the westward shift of oat acreage in the United States had moved into the middle and upper Mississippi Valley, which is its major area of production today.
History of Avena Sativa

History of Oat

Food History

Oats did not become important to man as early as wheat or barley. Oats probably per­sisted as a weed‑like plant in other cereals for centuries prior to being cultivated by itself. Some authorities believe that our present cultivated oats developed as a mutation from wild oats. They think this may have taken place in Asia Minor or south­eastern Europe not long before the birth of Christ.

Probably the oldest known oat grains were found in Egypt among remains of the 12th Dynasty, which was about 2,000 B.C. These probably were weeds and not actually cultivated by the Egyptians. The oldest known cultivated oats were found in caves in Switzerland that are believed to belong to the Bronze Age.

The history of oats is somewhat clouded because there are so many different species and subspecies, which makes identification of old remains very difficult. The chief modern center of greatest variety of forms is in Asia Minor where most all subspecies are in contact with each other. Many feel that the area with the greatest diversity of types is most likely where a particular plant originated.

Oats were first brought to North America with other grains in 1602 and planted on the Elizabeth Islands off the coast of Massachusetts. As early as 1786, George Washington sowed 580 acres to oats. By the 1860s and 1870s, the westward shift of oat acreage in the United States had moved into the middle and upper Mississippi Valley, which is its major area of production today.

Oats are chiefly a European and North American crop. These areas have the cool, moist climate to which oats are best adapted. Russia, Canada, the United States, Finland, and Poland are the leading oat producing countries. Oats are adapted to a wide range of soil types, thus temperature and moisture conditions are the usual limiting factors as to where oats are grown. Perhaps no other country uses oats as much in their cropping system as does Scotland. Some winter oats are produced in the United States, but most are spring oats produced mainly in the north central states.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the five leading states in production usually were Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. By the 1960's, the main oat producing area began moving somewhat north and westward. In 2000, the rank of states in order of production was Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Iowa. Iowa acreage peaked at about 6.4 million acres in 1950 and slumped to 270,000 acres, of which only 180,000 acres were harvested, by 2000. The more profitable crop, soybean, has replaced the oat acreage.
Food History