grownyc grain (NE USA wheat)

You can pre-order large 25 or 50 lb bags for pickup at the farmers market grain stands around the city.  The options are currently limited relative to older lists I found, but Farmer Ground is currently participating.  They don't currently offer whole grains, but I do see wheat berries as an option on their website.  It might be worth reaching out.  Lakeview Organic seems to be the only supplier offering whole grains right now.  Actually, I see "Wheat - Renan - Hard Red Winter", which caught my eye.  I'm curious if that is the same as the French Renan you were using previously, or perhaps there are other Renan wheat varieties?

https://www.grownyc.org/files/upload/grownyc_grains_limited_product_list_0.pdf

Wow.  What a find.  Thanks for posting that.  I'm considering buying a reading tablet just to keep up with all of the cheap or free ebooks you are posting.

I found an interesting article on the same subject on ediblemanhatten.com HERE.

Here is an interesting excerpt:

As her starting point, Hess recounted a bread recipe from 1824, published by Mary Randolph in a book called The Virginia House-wife. The recipe calls for flour, water, salt and yeast, and is, compared with today’s precisely calibrated baking recipes, notably casual and approximate in its directions. (Actually, the recipe somewhat resembles the baker Jim Lahey’s Internet-famous no-knead bread recipe, with its wet dough, low yeast and long rise time.) Hess noted that the recipe was made with pre-industrialized flour, and not accelerated with “fast-acting” yeast or loaded with sugar or added fats.

But her main point was the wheat itself—the loaf was made with lowland Virginia soft wheat, flying in the face of today’s received “wisdom” that only hard, high-gluten wheat can make good bread. The point struck a chord for Russell.

“[Hess] proudly proclaims that this is a hearth loaf made from soft wheat flour. And this is what we grow here.”

It was an aha moment for Dyck, too.

“We’ve been suckered down this long, increasingly narrow chute that you’ve got to have wheat that’s 14 percent protein and it’s got to be grown in Montana or Kansas or you can’t bake good bread with it,” she said. “Hess’s article really opened my eyes to the sky’s the limit. Wheat is really a worldwide crop; grain is a worldwide crop. We can do this in the Northeast.

I must admit to sharing that mindset.  It will be interesting to see how these local wheat varieties behave.  I hadn't considered soft wheat hearth loaves.

virginia_housewife.png