In 1994, archaeobotanist John Letts was sitting at a desk inside the Oxford University Museum of Natural History when someone handed him a shoebox. Inside was a pile of smoke-blackened straw pulled from the bottom layer of a medieval thatched roof in southern England.
He opened the lid and found twenty different types of wheat. Every ear was different. Different heights, different shapes, different colours. All grown together in the same field, harvested together and bundled into the roof of a building sometime around the year 1400.
That thatch had been sitting untouched for over 600 years, layer after layer of straw built up over centuries, each one a time capsule of what English farmers were actually growing. Not one type of grain. Many types of grain, mixed together on purpose.
Discover Maslin, a medieval bread that defied famine. This video explores a forgotten farming technique involving mixed grains, revealing its surprising resilience and nutritional benefits. Learn why this ancient practice is now gaining renewed interest.
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