I did not chime in at WO mainly because I've been too busy to do the necessary research. My random thoughts and observations: (1) Latin far 'spelt' also meant course '(course) meal' (related to our word barley); farina 'flour', flos farina 'flower of meal', i.e., the best of the meal, the finer. A monolingual Italian dictionary I consulted said that semola means 'bran', although in some southern dialects it means 'flour'. The word is rare, only showing up in Celsus and Pliny. I took a look at the Celsus passage where he discusses simila. He groups it in with the "windy" foods which cause flatulence and ought to avoided. You might want to find Watkins' article "Let Us Now Praise Famous Grains" (if you're interested, I can look up the citation).

Ceci n'est pas un seing.