Farro - ever heard of it?

if not i strongly suggest you hunt this tasty little morsel down the next time you are at the store.

pete and i were a bit perplexed when we first saw it on the menu. it was paired with butter beans and fresh sweet corn...it was intriguing so we inquired and ended up ordering it as a side dish saturday night while dining at FIG (a fabulous organic, sustainable-based restaurant in charleston, that we also highly recommend) and OH were we ever pleased.

farro can also be referred to as emmer wheat.

**Grano Farro has a long and glorious history: it is the original grain from which all others derive, and fed the Mediterranean and Near Eastern populations for thousands of years; somewhat more recently it was the standard ration of the Roman Legions that expanded throughout the Western World. Ground into a paste and cooked, it was also the primary ingredient in plus, the polenta eaten for centuries by the Roman poor. Important as it was, however, it was difficult to work and produced low yields. In the centuries following the fall of the Empire, higher-yielding grains were developed and farro's cultivation dwindled: By the turn of the century in Italy there were a few hundreds of acres of fields scattered over the regions of Lazio, Umbria, the Marches and Tuscany.**