Is Looking to the Past the Future of Wheat?
Wed, Jan 13, 2010
Author: Kenji Lopez-Alt (41 Articles)
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is a contributing editor for Cooks Illustrated Magazine, runs a private chef business, KA Cuisine, and writes a weekly column on burgers and food science for SeriousEats.com. He is also an occasional co-host of America's Test Kitchen . Kenji holds a BS from MIT and lives with his wife in Harlem.
[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]
Just as tomatoes have spent the last few hundred years slowly having the flavor slowly bred out of them in favor of more convenient attributes like uniformity in size and color and resistance to the rigors of transcontinental shipping, wheat has undergone a similar process. Unlike tomatoes, which, discounting any Native American influence, have been bred for for a mere few hundred years, wheat, a staple grain since the earliest civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, has had a 10,000 year breeding program. Modern wheat is designed for high yields, and to produce flours with consistently high protein contents. In the meantime, flavor has fallen by the wayside.
At least that’s what the well-meaning folks of the Northeast Organic Wheat Project (part of the Northeast Organic Farming Association) contend. This past monday, I attended a discussion and tasting sponsored by this group at the French Culinary Institute. As I wrote to Ed Levine or Serious Eats the next day:
That wheat event yesterday may have been the most boring event I’ve ever been to! Four hours talking about the subtleties of growing wheat!”
I don’t mean that as an insult to the organizers of the event—they were doing the best with what they had to work with—but if farmers are really going to start taking the place of chefs as the food media’s next set of rock-star celebrities, then tomatoes will be their rock and roll, wheat their Peter, Paul and Mary‐there’s a place for it, but it’s hardly an exciting one.
The problem became clear when we moved into the most interesting part of the event: the tasting. We tasted three breads made from three different locally grown, relatively modern heirloom wheat varieties (Arapahoe, Glenn, and Red Fife), baked by one of the instructors at the French Culinary Institute. While nobody could say that the breads all tasted the same, I’d have a tough time telling you whether it was the wheats themselves that made the breads taste different, or if it was other factors, like hydration, or fermentation. Immediately after the tasting, in a delightfully subversive moment, Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery fame got up to address the crowd and started with, “You could give me dog-shit wheat, and I could still make it taste great.”
His point? Great bread is not about the wheat that goes into it. A skilled baker will know by touch how to handle wheats that you give him—whether they need more or less water, longer or shorter autolysis, a stronger fermentation. The flavors of bread come partly from the wheat, but overwhelmingly more so from the way the wheat is handled. As proof he offered a loaf he himself had baked from Warthog, yet another heirloom variety. It handily blew the previous three samples out of the water.
He finished by claiming—and I paraphrase&mdashthat he supports the project because of its noble goals to support local farmers and create a locally sustainable food system, but the bread at Sullican Street is made with flour from ConAgra, and it still tastes damn good.
To be fair, I had to leave the conference shortly after the first tasting session to make another meeting, and so missed the second tasting session of flatbreads and pasta (though I managed to sneak a bit from the kitchen on my way out), so it is possible that I had I stayed, I would have tasted something that could have changed my mind, but I’m inclined to agree with Lahey.
I’m strongly in favor of supporting local farms and re-diversifying our food system, but we need to be sensible about it. The consumer still rules, and in order for the concept of replanting an heirloom vegetable to take off, it requires consumer support. An heirloom tomato or carrot that really tastes shockingly different from a commercial cultivar is one thing, but I find it hard to believe that anybody in their right mind other than a professional baker or some obsessive fringe nutso is going to go to a supermarket looking to buy a particular strain of wheat just because it’s the one that Sarah used to bake Abraham’s bread. Particularly because these wheats are so different from modern wheats that recipes calling for regular a/p flour won’t even work with them.
The vast majority of us are not bakers, and wouldn’t know what to do with these wheats even if we could get our hands on them. There was a brief mention at the conference that in organic settings, some of these heirloom wheat varieties actually have slightly higher yields than commercial varieties, meaning that for smaller organic farms, picking these wheats to grow is a matter of production—not of flavor. But then my question is: what farmer would choose growing slightly more of a less desirable crop over slightly less of a more desirable crop? Because let’s face it—for most people, heirloom wheats are not even a remote consideration. Or better yet, why not turn the whole field over to growing more of those delicious heirloom tomatoes, which at the height of summer, when sliced thin and placed on top of a piece of toast can overshadow the insipidness of even the most amateurish loaf of ConAgra wheat bread?
Tags: Kenji Lopez-Alt
It is unfortunate that Mr. Lopez-Alt’s review of our local grain tasting event last Monday was so uninformed.
The purpose of this invite-only event was to facilitate a direct dialogue between farmers and bakers, and get feedback on several wheat varieties and grains being trialed in the region. The room was full of heavy hitters from several fields, including some of the most knowledgeable grain growers in the region, researchers from Cornell, seed savers, millers, NYC bakers from Sullivan Street, City Bakery, Balthazar, Hot Bread Kitchen, Blue Hill, CIA and FCI, representatives from Anson Mills, Stone Buhr Flour Company, Tuthilltown Distillery, along with attendees from Buffalo, Rochester, Long Island, and Lancaster Co. PA. It was a rare opportunity that brought a unique group together to have a serious discussion and wrestle with the questions, issues and barriers of developing a viable regional grain economy.
It’s clear that Mr. Lopez-Alt did not understand the complexities of what was being discussed (or tasted), and did not bother do his homework either before or after the event. A fact that became painfully clear after he expressed titillation upon hearing Jim Lahey’s comment about being able to make good bread out of anything. This comment was actually more a challenge to his competitors in the room to use the grains from the region regardless of certain quality factors being discussed, and not a plug for the virtues of grain purchased from ConAgra. (In fact, Jim just contacted me looking for a source for that Warthog flour.)
These conversations may seem boring to an outsider, but within the community, they are essential, and to those who attended, interesting. The work on the ground and the details about where food comes from and how it is grown and produced is largely un-glamorous and dry, but the job of a good journalist, especially one who purports to support “…local farms and re-diversifying our local food system,” is to translate the facts accurately for his readers, and not expect farmers to fawn for his attention like many of the self aggrandizing “rock stars” Lopez-Alt is so fond of.
These discussions along with the grains that were tasted on Monday, not to mention those coveted heirloom tomatoes, all exist beyond the commodities market, meaning they will never be found in an average supermarket. Yet at Greenmarkets around the city, local grains are thriving, as Farmer Ground Flour, Wild Hive Bakery, Bread Alone, Bobolink, Hawthorne Valley and others are bringing local grains with exceptional flavor to the discerning consumer. A fact Mr. Lopez-Alt evidently could not be bothered to discover.
June Russell
Greenmarket
My wife and I were invited to attend Monday’s event at the French Culinary Institute, and while we had other events scheduled, we both had the event on our minds all day. I came upon this “Is Looking to the Past the Future of Wheat?” totally by accident. The “…most boring event I’ve ever been too. Four hours talking about the subtleties of growing wheat!” These are comments that would have been better spoken to a group of close friends, and with a great deal more objectivity publicly and less condescending.
The farmers will never take the place of chefs. Small farmers are individuals who are engaged in the craft of raising quality food. The chefs and bakers are the artists who work the magic: Forge the gold from the ore.
Chefs/bakers desire quality ingredients, hands down. If I deliver poor quality lettuce, eggs, or grain to one of our clients, we loose a custom. Respect and a trusting relationship between the chef and the individual(s) growing the product –the farmer, are desired by both parties. It’s a demanding partnership, and it must be for both businesses to succeed. It was positive relationships that Monday’s event sought to inspire.
My wife and I own and farm White Frost Farm, a 39 acre, organically managed farm in central PA. The Warthog wheat at Monday’s tasting event came from a one and a half acre trial we grew in partnership with the Northeast Organic Wheat Project. The field was planted with Medium Red Clover as a cover crop, The pH and soil chemistry were tested (only lime was needed), the soil was worked with small, lightweight equipment to minimize soil compaction, no chemical fertilizers or herbicides were applied to the crop/soils, and a quality non-treated seed was planted. The wheat was harvested with a small combine, cleaned and stored in a vault like room. Grain samples were sent to the National Quality Inspections lab and tested for Proteins, Falling Number, and Vomitoxin, the same categories tested by the big multinational. All of these numbers affect the performance of the flour, the finished product and the health of the persons consuming the grain. The smaller yields give a more precise representative sample of the grain being purchased. A bag of wheat is so much more than a bag of wheat.
Flavor is the charge of the small organic farms growing heritage, ancient, or modern varieties of grain. The suggestion high yields and growing organic wheat is “a matter of production” is presumptuous on behalf of the author and simply false. If yield was the goal, the common modern ConAgra varieties harrowed by the author would be good enough.
We have had several calls for Warthog this week, a result from the Monday event, as well as a mill from PA asking if we had moved our Warthog. Maybe the larger baking establishments aren’t the model for the smaller grower, but the quality, the freshness and its unique wholegrain flavor of our local grain is undeniable and desirable. The local bakers, clients, friends/vendors at our farmers’ markets and buying clubs buy our wheat berries/flour for its local origin, its fresh flavor and they come back with their friends.
Thank you June Russell’s for you enlightening comments.
@Kit and Kathy
I apologize for my admittedly harsh assessment of monday’s meeting, and I humbly retract the statement I made about it being boring – you are right, that should have been an opinion kept to myself, and had no place in a public review.
I also appreciate the thoughtful and informative rebuttal, and am happy that the event has helped farmers make links with bakers to help move their wheat.
I think if you read closely at what I was saying, I was not saying that growing, baking, or thinking about heirloom wheats is unimportant, or an unworthy cause, as you and June seems to think I was saying.
I was, on the other hand, making what I believe to be a very true statement: wheat and grains are inherently less exciting than fruit and vegetables, and the differences between heirloom wheats and commercially produced wheats (provided they meat the protein, falling number, and vomitoxin standards that you pointed out), are less pronounced than the difference between most heirloom vegetables, and their commercially produced counterparts.
On top of that, as a product, heirloom wheats are harder to work with, and as such, they will be difficult, if not impossible, to ever get into a consumer market, or even a large scale commercial market – they will only ever be a plaything of niche bakers and bakeries (and thank god for them).
I may have been misinterpreting Lahey’s comments (I don’t think I was), but I certainly wasn’t mis-tasting his bread, which was far better than any of the previous three that were presented at the event. Was it because of the Warthog flour he used? No, it was because he’s a better baker, my point being that even though bakers are buying heirloom flours, it is for reasons that are not entirely (or even partiall, I might argue), flavor-based.
It is because for now, there are enough customers who care about things like diversity, regional economies, or just plain feel earthy-crunchy, or that eating heirloom wheats is healthier. It’s a fad, and like all fads, is subject to the whims of the general population. The challenge for the champions of heritage wheats will be finding ways to make sure their products can stay viable in the market after these fads have come and gone.
Kenji Lopez-Alt
Your comments and directness are thought provoking. Your statement, “The consumer still rules … it requires consumer support.” is an axiom. Education, a shared common thread, will hopefully change consumer habit to consumer consciousness via their desire to eat healthier food and through their palettes. Availability is a challenge to be addressed by those of us growing heritage grains. The future of heritage grain production/products, and the organic farmers’ role will be determined by the collective efforts/choices made by farmers, bakers, chefs and ultimately consumers.
Kit Kelley
Is there a simple way to explain why these heirloom varieties of wheat can’t be utilized by the home baker? If Kenji’s argument here is that heirloom wheat is too esoteric to be picked up by consumers, why is that? If Jim Lahey can teach people how to bake amazing loafs in their dutch ovens, then surely the consumer can be educated about how to work with lesser-known types of wheat flour….
Delicious heirloom wheats are staging a comeback! We welcome folks to visit: growseed.org and to tour the fields:
Heritage Wheat Field Day
July 7, 1:00 – 5:00
UMass Research Farm
8991 River Road off Rt 116, Deerfield, MA
Discover almost-lost heritage wheats that thrive in New England organic soils. Learn how to integrate small grains in a diversified rotation. Share practical experiences to build a local wheat-to-bread system. Taste high nutrition einkorn bread that is safe for many gluten allergies.
Contact Eli Rogosa to register:
Ph: 413 624 0214
Email: growseed@yahoo.com
See: growseed.org for more information.
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