All of the breads at Farm and Sparrow are made with an heirloom wheat called “Turkey Red.” Turkey Red Wheat is an old eastern european heirloom that arrived in the United States in the 1800’s where it thrived and gave way to the American wheat belt. All modern hard red winter wheat in the US is about 50% Turkey, genetically speaking.
This wheat was first made available to us in 2008 via the Heritage Grain and Seed Company, a company begun by baker and wheat enthusiast Thom Leanord in Lawrence Kansas. He and a local farmer carefully took an isolated seed stock and multiplied it until they had commercially viable harvests.
I immediately liked working with the wheat. For a long time, I’ve blended ancient wheat strains with modern ones because I have enjoyed not only their flavor but the extensibility and tenderness they give to a dough. The Turkey wheat was something unique. While it behaved like a modern wheat in many ways, it had all of those qualities that I liked about the ancient wheats. In a sense, it was a grain that encompassed what I had been looking for during the time that I was blending wheats. The flavor as well was rich and was definitive of what Hard Red Wheat should taste like.
The implications of working with this old heirloom for our bakery are numerous. The most numerous though is the variability that we work with in the grain. Turkey is a landrace wheat which means it is a wheat with an old enough genetic base that it can adopt to many different climates and soils all over the world. As it is grown in a locale, its characteristics adjust to that place. It also means that, when growing it, a farmer (and baker) can experience an annual variation in qualities such as protein, i.e. flour strength.
In general, these sorts of issues are mitigated at the mill. A mill brings in wheat from many sources and they blend all the wheats until they have a flour of their exact protein. They will source from near and far in order to make sure that the flour you purchase in 2011 is no different from the flour you purchased in 2010. When you are working directly with a few farmers with a single strain of wheat, this goes out the window.
Much of the Turkey flour we worked with in the past year had a protein of about 9%. This wheat was harvested in 2009. This is characteristically a protein level suitable for pastry flour but not for bread. Yet, due to the protein quality, we made some of the best bread since the bakery opened. This was all the more an adventure as our mixer broke down for the last 5 months of the market season. We were making fantatstic breads by hand mixing a dough made with 9% protein flour. It was surreal.
We are now using Turkey wheat that was from the 2010 harvest. It is significantly stronger than the previous years wheat. As a baker, I actually prefer the weak wheat we had the previous season. But this is part of the adventure. So once again, I find myself re-writing formulas, adjusting times, and adjusting techniques in order to do the best with what we have. I would have found this concept daunting many years ago. At this point in my career though, I feel like working with a single varietal challenges me to use all the skills I have as a baker. It is more difficult, but it is exciting.
When I begain using this wheat, I shared my enthusiasm with a local farmer/friend named John McEntire. He is the proud keeper of his families variety of Heirloom Dent Corn. They’ve been growing it on his farm since the 1800’s. They always called it the Lavender Corn, since it had been grown their before them by the Lavender family. John grows around 5 acres of this corn every year and mills it into cornmeal and grits on the farm. We have been featuring his Corn in our Heirloom Grit bread and in our cornmeal pastry dough and cookies for years. Long story short, John agreed to plant Turkey wheat here in the mountains, 4 acres of it.
In 2010, 6000lbs was harvested off of his farm. It is very nice wheat. Perfect for stone milling and baking whole grain bread. In the fall of 2010, John planted 7 acres of wheat. In addition, he has planted 4 acres of Wren’s Abruzzi Rye. Various strains of Abruzzi Rye have been grown in the carolinas as far back as the colonial era. In addition to Johns efforts, a friend named Elizabeth Goldsmith has sewn an acre in small heirloom wheat plots on her family land in Old Fort. Those varieties which thrive will likely be sold to John for wider cultivation.
This past fall, I traveled for a week through France, spending time with bakers and farmers. I was pleased to find other bakers there who were trying to take their bakery in a similar direction. I met a wonderful baker named Didier Genetier in a Beaujolais village. I knew I had found someone pretty cool when I walked into his shop, which consisted of a large wood-fired oven, 2 large wooden mixing troughs, stacks of flour, and a crew of mixers who seemed to be having a blast as they plunged their arms deep into the dough. We talked of exchanging wheat seed and when I left, Didier sent me with a small jar of his wheat, “Rouge du Chamilles.” (Red Chamille). I agreed to send him a small bag of our mountain grown Turkey wheat. I am excited to plant his wheat and perhaps it will become a part of our bakery someday.
Our mill should be running in a week or two. It is a special stone mill in which the stones turn very slowly and all of the fragrances and flavors of the grain are preserved. When it is up and running, we will begin milling the Old Fort wheat. It will be labeled as some sort of “local bread.” Perhaps we’ll call it McEntires Wheat, since the wheat is now growing here on Johns farm and is developing a life of its own. This bread will be available at a few locally owned groceries until April. It will then be available for purchase at the tailgate markets. Stay tuned.