Durum wheat is the hardest of all wheats, the tetraploid species Triticum durum whose glassy, amber endosperm is milled into semolina — the coarse golden meal that is the raw material of dried pasta, couscous and much Mediterranean and Middle Eastern bread. A descendant of cultivated emmer, it is grown for its exceptionally hard, high-protein grain: so hard that milling shatters the endosperm into gritty semolina rather than crushing it to fine flour, and so rich in strong, tenacious gluten that dough extruded from it dries to a firm, springy strand that holds its shape and bite in boiling water. Its name is simply the Latin for "hard." Nuttier, more golden and more robustly flavoured than soft bread wheat, durum is the wheat behind spaghetti and macaroni, North African couscous and semolina, and the great flatbreads and pastries of the Mediterranean sun-belt.