From The Food Encyclopedia by Jacques Rolland and Carol Sherman
An extremely hardy ancient grain, dating back well over 4,000 years, used to make breads and other simple baked goods as well as hearty hot cereals. The grain is also converted to malt and fermented to make beer, after which it can be distilled to make whiskey. Barleycorns (the grain of the barley plant) were also used as a unit of measure. A royal decree in Tudor England standardized the inch as three barleycorns long, the foot as 39 barleycorns and the yard as 117 barleycorns. In the 16th century, Bavarian nobleman Duke Wilhelm IV originated the Rheinheitsgebot ("purity requirement"), the world's first consumer- protection decree, which stated that beer be made only from barley malt, hops and water. (For Barley Types, see page 62.)
