Many people consider pearl barley to be boring food from the past. They remember eating it in kindergarten and school, and think that it only belongs at the bottom of a pot of soup. But they’re wrong! This is a grain with a lot of possibilities. It’s already found a place in new Russian cuisine, and it’s feeling just fine in its new home! One of these new dishes is perlotto. This is a recipe made like risotto, but with pearl barley instead of rice. It’s true that there’s lot of starch in pearl barley, but it also has some advantages that you can’t find in any other grain. Vladimir Pavlov will tell you all about it in a new episode of Russian Travel Guide’s The Geography of Taste.