Re: Bread: wheat-kamut-spelt - Sunday's NYT

[Guest guest]

Uh -- from the part of the article I read, this baker is saying that spelt and kamut are okay for people with "diagnosed wheat allergies", that they can "digest" them. He says this "with a shake of his ponytail". There also is something in there about "everyone thinking they're allergic to wheat." I may not be quoting exactly accurately, but I'm close.

The fact: People with CD can't eat wheat. Spelt and kamut are forms of wheat.

So, those grains don't work for us.

Last week I was in a wonderful bakery/restaurant. I told them I had CD and needed a salad or soup made without wheat, rye, barley, etc., and no bread. They said they had bread that would be great for me, because it was made with spelt. Sigh. If only.

H.

FYI: This is a very interesting article about wheat that even the wheat-sensitive seem able to eat, and why.

Good food for thought--

--lp

-----Original Message-----

From: Palmer, <palmer@...>

bayareaceliacrock <bayareaceliacrock >; < >; northbayceliacs <northbayceliacs >

Sent: Fri, Oct 16, 2009 10:32 am

Subject: [ ] FW: Article about bread from last Sunday's NYT

FYI: This is a very interesting article about wheat that even the wheat-sensitive seem able to eat, and why.

Good food for thought--

--lp

There are two make-or-break factors that Jeff Ford can’t control as a vendor at the farmers’ market in Madison, Wis.: the weather and roller-coaster diet trends. His 12-year-old bakery, Cress Spring, survived Atkins, then experienced a sustained bump when Oprah<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/oprah_winfrey/index.html?inline=nyt-per> urged a switch to whole grains. These days, Ford said with a shake of his ponytail, everyone thinks he’s allergic to wheat.

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Still, by noon every Saturday, he’s sold out of the 400 loaves he loaded into his muddy pickup in rural Blue Mounds. That’s because Ford’s bread is different. His tangy, crusty loaves, baked in a wood-burning oven built by the legendary mason Alan , are made using obscure organic grains that he sources locally and grinds himself, and leavened using natural fermentation rather than industrial yeast.

Ford’s customers, some with medically diagnosed wheat allergies, have found that they have no problem digesting Cress Spring’s Kamut, spelt and all-rye breads, even the French white loaf, which — Ford is aware of the paradox — is one of his best sellers. (He sneaks up to 35 percent whole-wheat and rye flours into it, explaining: “White bread is just a mystery to me. Everything tastes better with rye.â€) Even a Manhattan nutritionist could probably polish off a Cress Spring loaf without bloating.

According to the baker, Americans’ wheat issues start on the farm. “The varieties of wheat grown in this country for industrial production are down to about five, so it’s all monoculture, chemicalized, no nutritional value,†said Ford, a serene, 43-year-old metalhead turned Deadhead who got his start as an accountant in a worker-owned Madison bakery. “The breeds are bred to stand up to abuse from the machines. We feed people this stuff that their bodies are not designed or adapted to eat. Of course they’re sensitive to it, and it’s not good for them and causes problems. And then we apply those standards to this?†he asked, gesturing to the tubs of dough around him, slowly rising to the beats of Black Star.

Cress Spring’s natural fermentation method is part of what makes its 13 bread varieties easier to eat. Instead of using instant yeast, which basically produces gas to rapidly inflate the dough without imparting flavor, Ford cultivates his own. Using precise measurements calculated on a spreadsheet (once a math geek . . .), he buries a ball of flour and water in a bag of flour for four or five days to create the foundation of his sourdough starters, which are then fed more flour and water days before they are formed into dough in a tall old mixer that has a picture of Bob Dylan<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/bob_dylan/index.html?inline=nyt-per> taped to it. “It’s called sourdough because you build up high acidity, and the yeasts have developed the ability to tolerate them,†Ford explained.

While yeasted breads can go from mixer to oven in a few hours, Ford’s orchestrated slow-rise method requires almost 24. The process changes the nature of the grain, breaking down its natural defenses and thereby making its nutrients more accessible to the body. (“Grains don’t want to be eaten,†he pointed out with a wry laugh. “They want to grow.â€) It also changes the flavor of the bread, imparting a sweet sourness and complexity. Since the only ingredients are grains, water and Celtic salt, the loaves have more longevity, too: Ford sliced me a piece of week-old Swiss rye that was still moist. Toasted for a few seconds at the lip of the 600-degree oven, it made an ideal accompaniment to a dinner of hearth-seared buffalo hanger steak.

The grains are an important part of Ford’s craft, as well as of his Wendell Berry-fed philosophy. He buys his rye, spelt and soft wheat as locally as possible — a nearby farmer used to sell him rye harvested by oxen — and gets his hard wheat from Minnesota and his Kamut from North Dakota or Montana. He grinds them on mixing day to maximize their nutrition.

His longstanding dedication to local grains (he briefly tried growing his own wheat) and same-day milling was ahead of the recent renaissance of bakers who are fulfilling the snowballing desire for local foods in a harder-to-fill part of the table: the breadbasket. In Skowhegan, Me., for example, organizers of the Kneading Conference for wood-fired-oven baking and local grain cultivation are transforming an 1860s jailhouse into a grist mill and bakery, where they will grind Maine wheat for their loaves.

Ford said that he was hoping to get through our interview without using the word “sustainable.†But, he said with a sigh, “here we are.†When he built the bakery on communal farmland, literally constructing his house around the massive oven, it was with the idea of creating a business that could withstand environmental and economic collapses. Alan came to help build Ford’s 4-by-6-foot hearth as part of a paying community workshop. (In the baking world, having , who died in January, build your oven is like having Steve Jobs<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/j/steven_p_jobs/index.html?inline=nyt-per> set up your laptop. Ford’s baking partner, a 29-year-old woman who goes by the name of Biggie Lemke, dropped her Manhattan cooking career to apprentice at Cress Spring when told her about the oven he had built in Wisconsin.) Ford chops his own wood and gets scraps from a Madison mill, buys all the ingredients for his pastries and granola from his neighbors and fellow market vendors and, if need be, he can try growing his own wheat again.

Over the years, he has shrunk his business to a more comfortable scale, virtually ending wholesale in favor of a manageable, and profitable, home-delivery service. (He limits the route so as not to cut into his Friday-night basketball game.) Come Saturday, “People hand me money all day and tell me they love what we do,†he said, tucking a shaped ball of dough into a linen-lined basket. “At that point it’s not work; it’s my social life.â€

Ford’s locavoraciousness has resulted in a rich community and satisfying, dare he say sustainable, life. Any visiting urban food snob who sees the sunflower seeds on the Sunny Spelt loaf and skips the Cress Spring booth, not understanding that hippies are an integral gourmet subset, will miss out on bread with a coppery-gold crust, slightly burned edges and a vibrant crumb that would impress any baker at Poilâne in Paris, Balthazar in Manhattan or Acme Bread Company in Berkeley. The fact that it is suddenly desirable because it is whole-grain, organic, locally sourced and tolerated by the wheat-sensitive is something Ford could never have envisioned. Perhaps because it has been his vision all along.

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MAGAZINE | October 11, 2009

Field Report: Grain Elevator <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11food-t.html?emc=eta1>

By CHRISTINE MUHLKE

Once seen as a barefoot hippie baker, Jeff Ford of Cress Spring Bakery is now a locavore hero.

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