The Tracing Paper

East Anglia’s farming is predominately arable, producing over a quarter of England’s cereals, principally wheat and barley, also oats and rye.

Cereals in the Landscape

Much of the landscape of the East of England is characterised by its expansive cereal fields. The cultivation and growth of cereal crops colours the countryside through the seasons: From the soft green young growth of winter and spring, through the golden swathes of ripe summer corn, to the ochre stubbles and bare ploughed expanses of soil left once the harvest is in and the fields prepared for another year.

The extensive arable (the term means suitable for ploughing) lands of the East of England are flat, fertile and ideally suited to the cultivation of cereals. Across the region, 48% of all agricultural land is used for cereal production each year. In the counties of Essex and Bedfordshire over half of farmed land is given over to cereals.

Food from Cereals

The cereals produced in the East of England are important as a source of food and drink, particularly wheat flour for bread and malted barley for brewing. Cereals are also much used for animal feed and the availability of feed cereals has given rise to significant pig and poultry production in the region.

The many surviving wind and water mills are a striking reminder of the long importance of cereals as our staple food. These mills served small and localised markets, grinding wheat into flour for baking and producing feed for local livestock.

Modern mills are few and large, the range of cereal products now enormous. Flour for bread, biscuits and cakes; breakfast cereals and crispbreads; starches, sweeteners and colourings for manufactured foods: all these and more are made from the region’s grain.

Traditionally baked bread is hard to beat and still produced daily by craft bakers, along with local specialities from Bedfordshire Clangers to Norfolk Nobs.

Malted barley is the main raw material for the region’s many brewers, from the recent wave of micro-breweries to long established firms like Adnam’s of Southwold and Bedford’s Charles Wells. Hertfordshire’s many converted malthouses testify to its historical importance as a centre of the malting industry, while North Norfolk is renowned for the superb quality of its premium malting barley.

The Ancestry of Cereals

Plants of the grass family, cereals are cultivated for their nutritious seeds, generally known as grain. World cereal crops include rice, maize, barley, oats, rye and millet, but wheat is the most grown, both globally and in the United Kingdom. After wheat, barley is the second most grown cereal in the East of England, followed by very minor crops such as oats and rye.

Cereals are the most important source of food for most of the world’s population. In Britain, a third of our protein and energy requirements are provided by the various cereals. While some cereals, such as rice and oats, are eaten after only limited processing, others, like wheat and barley, undergo more extensive processing and are consumed as bread, beer and other manufactured foods.

These cereals, now such a familiar part of our landscape, are of exotic origin, with wild ancestors native to the Middle East. Modern wheat and barley still prefer the drier and more continental climate of the East of England to the North and West, where oats and rye are more easily grown.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS