Now that I have your attention...
In today's New York Times travel section, Maureen B. Fant and the silent Franco are chowing their way through the Piedmont. In one restaurant, she encounters "a hearty, delicious soup of farro (emmer)..."
Hey, wait one minute, Maureen! Didn't this group in a recent thread decide that farro (a wonderful earthy grain somewhere between pearl barley and whole cooked wheat berries, for those who are joining late) didn't we decide that farro is called spelt in English. A quick scour of Google confirms this to be so; emmer is a cousin of spelt. (I love these words.)
Can Maureen B. Fant and the NYTimes be incorrect? Will the sun rise tomorrow?
And the next time you are stocking up on supplies at the Supermercato in the Etruscan Mall in Chiusi, pick up some of their premade insalata farro. Yum. Wish I were there now, getting an etto of this and that.
Have a happy Christmas, everybody.
Yrs, Robert

I tried the farro salad made with barley.....excellent and drew rave comments from most of the 60 people...but I'd rather have farro/spelt.

Actually, I think the NY Times is correct. I checked out a copy of The Zuni Cafe Cookbook at our library and it lists farro is Triticum Dicoccum. This is Emmer Wheat.

What is confusing is there are three sizes of Farro and the large size is Triticum Spelt. Triticum Dicoccum is the medium. There are a couple of references on the web to Triticum Dicoccum as the farro of Garfagnana. It is also the genus name listed on the Rustichella d'Abruzzo farro.

Marta

Thanks Marta. I am more confused than ever. I went by this link
www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1996/V3-156.html
which lead me to believe that spelt and emmer are slightly different varieties of the same grain. And which is farro? And why? Aaarrrggghhh. I think I'll give up and just call it farro.
Yrs, Robert

[This message was edited by Pauline on December 22, 2002 at 07:14 PM.]

Yep, I think they are very close. This page has a pictureof both grains. I think Farro grande is spelt and Farro Medio is Emmer.

I found this link that explains that it is confusing but that Triticum Dicoccum is the 'real' farro. It will require soaking and retains a firm chewy texture. Spelt does not require soaking and cooks up softer and mushier.

What I find confusing is some of the Italian on-line stores such as AG Ferrari sell Farro "Intero" and Farro "Decorticato". Anyone know what intero and decorticato mean?

Marta

Intero means whole as in whole wheat. Decorticato means the outside shell has been removed. Like rice is white or brown, processed or whole.
Lentils etc. also come that way, as do dried fave. It sometimes makes a huge difference as to what you can do with the product.

This is really just an excuse for me to put in a plug for my favourite food reference book, which has just been issued by Penguin in paperback. This link includes the slowtrav clickthru to Amazon.uk for any interested europeans. £16 is a pretty good price for 1104 pages; Alan Davidson mixes erudition with charm.

Anyway, according to his entry (s.v. "Wheat"), emmer is Triticum dicoccum: "descended from T. dicoccoides, wild emmer, [and]now mostly fed to livestock". Spelt is T. spelta, which "survives on a small scale in parts of C. and E. Europe, where the unripe grains are used in soup, under the name of Grünkern, green grain".

The original hardback Oxford Companion was my first ever purchase from Amazon: a Christmas present to myself in 1999!

Jonathan

Thanks for the translation. That helps a lot and makes a lot of sense now.

Marta