CHAP. 15.—PTISAN.
With barley, too, the food called ptisan[149] is made, a most substantial and salutary aliment, and one that is held in very high esteem. Hippocrates, one of the most famous writers on medical science, has devoted a whole volume to the praises of this aliment. The ptisan of the highest quality is that which is made at Utica; that of Egypt is prepared from a kind of barley, the grain of which grows with two points.[150] In Bætica and Africa, the kind of barley from which this food is made is that which Turranius calls the “smooth”[151] barley: the same author expresses an opinion, too, that olyra[152] and rice are the same. The method of preparing ptisan is universally known.