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Grains - the New & the Old |
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There is also an ongoing search by food lovers to find the new best thing - and one of the oldest foods in the world is now hitting the radar screens of these trendsetters. Grains such as cracked durum wheat, buckwheat, farro, einkorn, spelt, kamut all sound very strange to Australian ears but have all been used since ancient times. Some, such as farro, are still part of the Italian cuisine and can be seen in shops and restaurants in the North of Italy.
Everything old is new again
Yes it is a line in a song but it is also true for so many lifestyle choices and fashion and food are two examples of this cycle which swings around from old to new and back again. And believe me there is a fashion in food. Just look at the resurgence in so called comfort foods such as lamb shanks, stews, mash, sausages and you can see this at work.
There is also an ongoing search by food lovers to find the new best thing - and one of the oldest foods in the world is now hitting the radar screens of these trendsetters. Grains such as cracked durum wheat, buckwheat, farro, einkorn, spelt, kamut all sound very strange to Australian ears but have all been used since ancient times. Some, such as farro, are still part of the Italian cuisine and can be seen in shops and restaurants in the North of Italy. Crunchy and nutty in flavour farro is used in soups, casseroles, salads and as a side dish. It sits on the shelf in the grocery stores with spelt a similar form of wheat.
We are talking seriously old forms of food here. Einkorn and emmer are known as primitive wheats because they were one of the first cereals to be cultivated for food and because the kernels do not thresh free. Spelt can be traced back to the Bronze Age and was grown around what is now Iran. It is now a major crop through South East Europe primarily Germany and Switzerland. Traces of kamut were found in the Egyptian pyramids and buckwheat has been used in the Russian and Eastern European cuisines since the earliest times.
In the search for good healthy alternatives, these wheats are fast becoming of interest to dedicated food lovers and in particular to the specialised bakers. Those who shop at the growers markets, the organic food outlets and the health shops will have seen breads made from spelt and kamut. They have a nutty flavour and a crunchy crust and tend to remain fresher far longer than breads made with more conventional flours.
What is more these specialised wheats are now being grown and milled in Australia. Sure the market is not large but we are going back to these wheats because it has been found that these old species are really as good, if not better for breadmaking, as any of the modern varieties
The other good story is that a number of these grains are available from health shops not only for bread making but for use instead of rice or cous cous. They sit on the shelf with burgul well known because of its use in Lebanese foods, quinoa a type of millet used by the Incas and with one of the highest protein counts of any grain, barley in a variety of hulled and unhulled versions.
Winter is a perfect time to trial some of these great grains. Not only are they delicious and filling and perfect partners for the type of meals that we eat during this season, they are also wonderfully good for you.
It just shows that we can still learn a great deal from the old world.
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