Variety Showcase

A report

Dear bread fans,

I went to the Variety Showcase at Glynwood a couple of weeks ago and was really floored. These events are the brainchild of Lane Selman, a dream brain at Oregon State University who invented the Culinary Breeding Network to address the gaps she saw between farmers, agricultural professionals, and chefs. She creates conduits for these people to communicate about their shared work, and events for the public to get up close and personal with plant breeders, bakers and chefs. If you ever get the chance to go to one, you really should.

This one took place at Glynwood, where June Russell, formerly of GrowNYC Grains is now stationed. June is continuing her work of championing grains in the Northeast. Here are things I loved in the grain tent:

·       Grain people milling around and pushing info & treats at booths.

·       The rye bread Adam of the Brooklyn Granary & Mill made, and the 1908 rye production map, pictured below, that Heather Darby of UVM’s Crops & Soils Team is holding.

·       Eating the walnut loaf Anne Mayhew of LMNOP bakery in Katonah, NY made from UC Davis walnuts & wheat. Wowsa, will you look at that amazing bread.

·       Meeting Nando Jaramillo from Vermont. His empanadas, made with black beans & Early Riser corn were stunning, and we shared a moment of fondness for the late great Jack Lazor, champion of Early Riser; Nando is taking over stewardship of this short season organic corn that is a population, not a single variety.

·      Seeing Cornell’s Mark Sorrells & the collaborative wheat crosses & trials that are happening in the Northeast & Midwest, with University of Wisconsin-Madison. There’s a new soft white wheat coming aboard called Towpath! Can’t wait for that. Chef Mike Anthony of Gramercy Tavern had a luscious savory taste of it. Images below.

·       Seeing Andrew Ross and Brigid Meints, also of Oregon State University, and talking barley, specifically naked barley. In this case, naked means a grain free from hulls; hulls on barley, emmer, einkorn, and oats need special equipment and handling, making it harder for farmers to grow these grains. (Cornell is working on hulless emmer & einkorn!) The Naked Barley project is carving a path to get this nutrient powerhouse in circulation. They nixtamalized barley and made it into chips. Yum.

Aside from taste, why does all this matter? Grains are generally bred and grown for industrial use, meaning that plants have been tooled for uniformity, to serve industrial processing facilities. Flavor is not favored, nor are organic growing practices, nor performance at anything less than an enormous scale. Craft malthouses, micro flour mills, and non-factory bakeries are looking to distinguish their foods & beverages from the dominant system. Getting off-grid grains allows them to participate in sustainable food systems and deliver us excellent food options.

As an eater, it is easy to get hung up on heritage or heirloom varieties and get scared of plant breeding. But people have been working with plants for thousands of years, and there are terrific collaborations happening right now! I hope you will take a look at the program from this Variety Showcase to see what’s happening in the grain, bean & vegetable fields.

In other news, I held the first food memory booth at the Troy farmers’ market on a cold and drizzly Saturday. My local bakery, The Placid Baker, helped me make replicas of Freihofer’s hermit cookies, and I think they were pretty great. A bunch of people paused to write a little bit about food. I was super happy that one of you, dear readers came over from the Berkshires and said hello! What a delight. (Thought I had a picture, but it is only in my mind.) I’m setting up at the market again Saturday, which will be indoors this time. Please find me if you can.

There is another chance to connect: give a call to WAMC Public Radio Friday afternoon, November 3rd. I’ll be on Food Friday with Ray Graf, and I’d love to hear your bread ideas, food memories, and gluten-full baking questions. 1-800-323-9262 is the number, and we will be talking from 2-3 p.m. Eastern time.

I leave you with a recipe for hermits, adapted from Ina Garten’s Spicy Hermit Bars. Will you please try them and let me know what you think?

Yours, Amy

Hermit cookies 

½ cup butter (1 stick or 113 g)

1 cup light brown sugar (213 g)

1 egg (50 g)

¼ cup molasses (70g)

2 ½ cups flour – all purpose, or partially rye, spelt or whole wheat pastry flour ( ~300 g)

1 ½ tsp baking soda (7.2 g)

2 tsp cinnamon (5.5 g)

Scant tsp ground cloves (2 g)

1 tsp ground allspice (2 g)

½ tsp kosher salt (3 g)

1 ½ cup raisins (200 g)

·       Preheat oven to 375° Fahrenheit. Grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper or a silicone mat.

·       Cream butter & sugar thoroughly by hand, or for 2 minutes on medium in a stand mixer.

·       Scrape bowl and add egg & molasses. Mix for another minute on medium, or until thoroughly combined.

·       Whisk together dry ingredients except for raisins. 

·       Combine wet & dry mixtures, beat well and then add raisins.

·       Divide dough in two. Roll each half into a log a few inches shorter than the cookie sheet.

·       Press logs slightly onto the pan. They will spread a lot, so leave about 4 inches between them, and keep them from the edge of the pan.

·       Bake for about 20 minutes. The cookies will look cracked and seem not quite done. But don’t leave them in the oven for more than 25 minutes unless you want a crunchy cookie.

·       Cool on the tray. Transfer to a cutting board and slice into pieces about 2-3 inches wide.

Extra Stuff:

• I wrote about The Hudson Oven, a new bakery in Croton, NY. They use Farmer Ground Flour exclusively, and coincidentally, that is where Thor Oechsner, organic grain farmer and founder of Farmer Ground, is from.

• I’m loving reading The Lost Supper by Taras Grescoe. The bread chapter is not to be missed!

• I devoured The Meth Lunches: Food and Longing in an American City by Kim Foster. Amazing writing about caring for people in our twisted social system.

• The food memories project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by The Arts Center of the Capital Region.