Why NASA Banned Bread (The Secret Life of Flour)

Hello everybody.

It's another episode of Family Tree Food and Stories with Nancy May and Sylvia.

Lovely.

If you haven't heard our last show, we talked about roadside treasures,

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And also, one more question.

Good things come in threes as they say.

Right, Sylvia?

For sure.

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In any case, let's get on with the show.

Sylvia.

How's that?

What fun to take up flour today.

yeah, right now, so I've got a question for you to get started.

What did you eat today?

Uh oh.

You're always trying to catch me in the middle of something, so what is it?

Well, I'm gonna pretty much guarantee that you and everybody

else that's listening here today ate something with flour in it.

Now we're not talking garden flour.

I'm talking about sandwich flour.

The white flour that you get in the bags, and I'm gonna guess everybody

has in there, are pantry somewhere.

at least if you haven't eaten it today, you've probably eaten something, even

if you're gluten intolerant in the last.

Couple of days or so, like a sandwich or tortilla, maybe a

cookie or two or three or four.

Even a Girl Scout cookie.

'cause it's Girl Scout cookie season here.

seasoned buy

Oh yeah,

that's right.

do you know what kind of flour it was in that

Zing.

I gotcha.

Yeah.

Sourdough.

you got me?

Well, more often than not, we don't know the story of the flour behind

all the delicious things that we've eaten over the years and maybe

even just yesterday, including what grandmas and moms have cooked.

But over 30,000 years ago, We as humans started out grinding grain.

Now that isn't just suddenly over the top of, what we expected it

would be, but grinding green in like stone ground stuff, hard work.

And today we're back to grinding many of our own flours.

Yeah.

It seems like everything old is new again.

And I love that trend.

For some people.

I kind of like how tradition has gone and adopts almost any way

we do things now and that's good.

but the stories behind it all from stone slabs to industrial rollers.

Now back to the kitchen counter, which in most cases now we

know are stone slabs, right?

Granite.

Marble . but anyway, I have images of cave women, just like in the kitchen now.

And wouldn't they love it?

'cause even if they still made their own, they could make those choices.

Right.

I wonder if those women ever thought about what might happen with food ingredients

they used way back when and, well, in the early years, BC years, makes you

really wanna have a time capsule and just.

Go back.

Maybe the Flintstones will fly us there someday on one of their rock airplanes.

Right?

Right.

30,000 years ago, people were crushing wild seeds on rocks, like I said.

But I can't picture myself doing that.

Still people are doing it today and it kind of makes me think like like

my KitchenAid is a space age tool compared to some of those things.

Yeah.

but it's kind of a funny thing to even think that a KitchenAid could be

such a space age that I'm not gonna get that outright a space age kind of thing.

If you were even, you know, I would say 60 years ago or so.

Yeah.

You know, people made grain out of anything., We hear

about it today, people.

Picking stuff out of their yards.

Well, seriously, that's what people did.

Grain met survival, whatever it was, consisting of.

But I love this, the birthplace, the birthplace of agriculture is believed to

have taken place in the Fertile Crescent, which if you see it on a map, it really

literally is a big crescent that goes approximately, it's from the Nile Valley.

Through modern day Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq to the Persian Gulf.

And if you can visualize that, I think it's pretty interesting information.

And we don't typically even talk about this stuff it's not like

you go home and have dinner and, oh, honey, did you read about.

The fertile Crescent today, you know, but you don't.

but the important part to all of this is that flour allowed people

to stay put and not have to roam.

It was kind of the birth of the agricultural age,

it I just can't believe it's, it's so interesting that we're

actually going back to so many of those roots and it's, I guess it's really

more intentional than we realize.

Mm-hmm.

It is intentional mindfulness, people want transparency.

They wanna know what's in their stuff, when you grind your own

wheat berries at home, you see it, you smell it, you know what went in.

There's no mystery bag.

But then there's also stuff on the counter.

That you have learned to trust.

I mean, you can like research it now where they did the grinding, but

it doesn't have all the additives and all of that sort of thing.

So yeah, it's, good any way you look at it.

The, the mystery bag of flour, I'm gonna call it because I

have to tell you, I have tons of these different kinds of flour in my pantry.

I've got rice flour, I've got wheat flour, I've got oat flour.

I'm not even sure what to do with half of it other than the rice

flour's not supposed to make my bread stick to the counter, which

it doesn't because it doesn't have gluten in it, which is interesting.

But I have a neighbor who's gone back to grinding her own.

Bread flour and I looked into what it might, what I might actually

need to try and do this myself, and I found that I had all the tools.

Okay, we've got rocks.

I'm not going to do that one.

But all I needed really is a, an attachment for my KitchenAid, which

totally surprised me that I could do with something as simple as that.

But so many people who have gluten issues like Celiacs apparently are really

better off grinding their own grains from traditional or ancient grains because

then they'll know where it's coming from and all those extra little additives that

go in that are sort of less organic are not impacting the flour to make it more

difficult for the gut to actually digest.

But even just doing the grinding, I would imagine it

would be extremely relaxing and.

Somewhat satisfying for doing something from scratch.

I'll have to give it a try myself and report back

Yeah, well, you tell me all about it.

I mean, I like the fact that you can go to the shelf and you see all this stuff.

I mean, chickpea flour, oh my gosh, what is that right?

I wouldn't

Allmond flour, all, all of those things.

so I'm intrigued by it.

But did you know, and this is a little science experiment person

inside of me, that flour explodes.

And here's kind of the scientific process, very rudimentary, where it's

coming from me, but it's like flour has tiny, tiny, tiny particles and

when it spreads and there's some sort of combustion, 'cause it has carbs and

proteins and if it creates a dust cloud, it interacts with oxygen and boom.

Isn't that interesting?

knowing what's going on in the world today, I guess maybe

we could have the military call us for a little help along the way.

And I did know that flour combusted, and in 1878, the Washburn Flour Mill

in Minneapolis exploded when just like you said, flour particles were in the

air and ignited with a fire spark.

And I'm thinking, you know, some fat boss, of course, I've got this idea of

this fat Joe with a stogie cigar walking around telling us women what to do.

Not in my book, but in any case.

The sad part is that 18 people died from that explosion and in the

right conditions, like you said, it becomes industrial dynamite.

Yeah.

if we have any listeners from Min uh, Minnesota.

that's where those big wheat fields are all across the plains, and a

lot of it happened in Minneapolis.

And in fact, when I read, what you had written about this, I remembered going

to the flour Museum in Minneapolis.

And it's all about all of those interesting events that

led us to where we are today.

Who would've thought that flour played such a role in, our country.

But the interesting part is that the flour mill that we're talking

about, the Washburn flour mill, well, when it was rebuilt, it eventually

became known as General Mills.

THE General Mills.

Yep.

That General Mills, the very same, that the gold medal flour bag that your

grandmother or, uh, well, I have on my shelf as well, it's a direct descendant

of the mill that blew up in 1878.

Hmm.

it's a story that just, it turns from a dust disaster and becomes

the most interesting, recognizable brand that we have in America today.

And it's not a bad comeback story, I'd say.

Right.

So every time someone pulls out a bag of gold medal, they're

basically holding a little piece of Minneapolis history and history for us.

and that's one very dramatic origin story.

Or maybe a little dynamite, like be careful

kids, if you are listening,

Yeah.

before you open that bag of flour.

But anyway, flour really does have a big story in every bag,

Yeah, and we should also be more careful with

our kitchen adventures, right?

So

be careful.

I think.

I think so.

But speaking of flour, so this is kind of an interesting little tidbit.

Did you know that beyond the combustibility of flour, there's some

other reasons or there's some other issues around it of how it can be used?

And NASA does not allow flour bread products to go up in space.

Is that cool?

Hmm, no bread in space.

That does seem like cruel and unusual punishment.

Right, but think about it.

The crumbs are floating in the small little particle and granules, and they can

get stuck and trapped in all those high tech pieces of equipment and flour dust

in a contained, pressurized environment.

Well, there's your little scientific experiment, although I don't

think we want to try that one.

It could just be.

True and total mess.

I can't imagine that even our people in the Mills or the original

General Mills flour Place was even thinking about that at the time.

Yeah.

So, it's interesting, the most advanced humans on the planet have to find a

different way to have a sandwich, right?

yeah.

Not a traditional BLT or a ham and cheese, but or tortilla sandwich because

it's the tortillas that you can use.

They're soft.

They don't crumble.

They're flexible, and they stay intact.

And in 1985 tortillas became the preferred bread alternative for outer space.

All right.

Yeah.

Right.

Do you remember Tang?

Oh yeah.

Oh, I love that.

Have

a glass of

tang.

yep.

Tang was a breakfast drink of astronauts the slogan was for

spacemen and earthly families.

Although, I think, I have to say, I'm not sure, I'm kind of a feminist here.

I don't think we should say spacemen anymore for space women or maybe

space cadets and earthly families.

so the ancient flatbread, flour water heated on

a stone outlasted every innovation survived industrialization, and it is

now the choice of astronauts hurdling through orbit at 17 K miles per hour.

Ywe Ka.

I know it's hard to believe that it all started back three a

30,000, or maybe it's 30 million years ago, but a lot, a lot of years

ago when we were grinding seeds on rocks and now we're taking them into

space, which I think is so cool.

And that's a food story.

I mean, that's what we're about.

That's part of everything that we're talking about.

There's food and history and family and traditions, and it's from cavemen too.

Spacemen and women in

Yeah.

Yeah, you go girls, women started it and women are going to space.

I love it.

So let's talk about what's happening in the grocery stores because

flour used to just say all purpose, right?

the gold medal flour stuff, all the parents that our

parents used over the years.

Now, so many of those flour bags or sacks.

Now I have to ask you, do you call it a flour bag or do you call it a flour?

You know, I don't remember addressing it, but I

think, probably a flour bag.

But, I know you say bags, right?

I say bags, but I at West, I understand they say s

Yeah.

Interesting.

of course, you know, in my image, like of the museum, they

have these huge sour sacks.

They are like burlap sacks or something like that.

Something large.

where people really used flour probably a lot more than they do today, and

fed large families and all that kind of stuff, but we have all kinds

of different labels on them now.

We have organic.

I started noticing that, and I actually buy organic.

It's not that much more expensive and I'm not quite sure why, except

I feel like it's just more pure.

And, what about the non GMO thing and ancient grain?

Stone milled, regeneratively farmed.

I mean, you need a PhD in agriculture to get through this, don't you?

So let's make it easy.

Right.

It's like we have to learn a whole new language when we go to the grocery store,

or even if you're milling it yourself.

But that often gets confusing because the details behind these are.

Are always, well, they're not always what we think they are, and consumers

are asking, where is it all grown in?

What's it sprayed with and is it genetically modified?

Or how has it grown?

Or what does it even look like?

You know, I never saw a wheat field till we came down south.

I grew up around them.

Right.

Well, I, I certainly saw corn fields over the years, but

that was a little different.

But to see a wheat field if you've never seen one, it is absolutely beautiful when

it gets ripe and ready to be harvested.

But the term non GMO la labeling signifies, sort of a bigger

trust when you think about it.

And I'm not sure that's actually true.

However, maybe a false sense of security is a good thing to have sometimes.

yeah.

So the developing something bigger, trust.

and here's some details on why organic wheat avoids synthetic herbicides.

Like what is popularly known as Roundup and its technical name is

glyphosate to say that three times

Well wait a second.

Before you wait, before you go forward, I just wanna tell you this, and I don't know

it's true, but we had a fellow from the University of Florida come to our property

'cause we're looking at doing a Christmas

tree farm here.

And he's a PhD in plant science, and we have some invasive grass on our property.

And he said, oh, you need to get rid of that.

And he said, the only way to get rid of it, because it doesn't have seeds,

it's got rhizomes under the ground.

And that's how it, it multiplies.

He said, is to use Roundup.

I'm like, oh,

No.

Well, apparently, uh, now I don't know if this is true,

but I'm, I'm relying on the.

University of Florida, top guy, plant scientist for his information said that

Roundup used to be a safer product to use than it is today, that's because,

well, I guess it was during Vietnam, things got a little sketchy as far as the

quality of the herbicides, you know, to

clear the jungle

kind of thing.

Yeah.

And the type of roundup, which is basically what it was, the herbicide

that they used Agent Orange was filled with all sorts of other toxic chemicals.

'cause they didn't need to worry about purities.

And hence we don't necessarily know what's in our roundup today.

And that's

caused a lot of the problems.

Interesting.

Huh?

it was actually better before.

it was considered safe before Vietnam.

Yep.

take, uh, Erin Brockovich and ask her about that one.

I know, right?

Don't know that I believe it, but anyway, that's interesting.

But the debate on synthetic herbicides and everything, especially

like Roundup, has been, a question for many years in the US and Europe and

some countries have restricted more aggressively like other pesticides.

And you know, I didn't even consider or know that Europe was doing this more

aggressively than we were here in the states, but Bob and I learned about this

while we were raising bees because the type of chemicals that you can use on

bees to get rid of mites and other things.

Now I know this is not about flour, but in the long run it is because it's a plant

that needs, oh, flour doesn't pollinate by by bees, it pollinates by wind.

But anyway, it's still an interesting to understand that European flour

is still considered cleaner.

The perception of a better type of product has resulted going way back when

You know, some of the reason for that though is

people just think of Europe as being old, worldly and more traditional

and more artisanal and craft.

it seems smaller to us.

you think of Italian cooking, you always think of the little villages, right?

You don't think of big cities like we have, even though they have big cities.

So I think there's a lot of romanticism to Europe and Paris and places like that.

And so you think their products are better, I think there's some of

we're just the rugged haws out here in, in the states, but,

That's all.

but people are paying more attention to, getting back to

their own wheat and I am surprised it's such the trend that's such

how big of a trend it actually is that's happening here in the states.

So I did a little experiment.

Well, I did an do experiment.

I went doing a little research to see what a home mill would cost.

Mm-hmm.

They're crazy expensive.

So there's some teeny tiny ones that I, I probably get like a tablespoon

of wheat out of it at a time, which I wouldn't spend the time doing that.

But the average price of them for, for being able to do it yourself

are running anywhere from, let's say, $300 to $700 dollars.

I mean, that's a lot of flour you gotta do.

And one I found was $15,000, which would take up the entire

counter, or corner of my kitchen.

So I'm, I think I'm sticking to buying it in the grocery store right now.

You know, sometimes you wonder, you can buy stuff like the way I

do it, I'm not ever gonna grind my own.

but you can see organic like I go to Whole Foods and that

whole section of breads.

growing right.

Yeah.

I forget what they call some of those.

I should have written those down.

'cause I go them, I go to them and I buy them based on looks.

And some of 'em are this deep, dark, brown, nutty flavor

because they have nuts in 'em.

or the germ appears the germ of the wheat.

Appears to be more intact.

Now, I don't know the science behind that, but I suspect it's about grinding

and putting maybe some things like sunflour seeds back in and things.

'Cause there's some breads like that and I'll get those.

They're real thick and they taste really good, but wow, they

fill you up really fast too.

Then plain old Wonder Bread.

Remember Nancy, remember

Okay, wonderful.

Right, which, which, if you were a plumber, and even if you're

not, if you have a plumbing issue, you can actually use.

Roll the pieces of Wonderball Wonderball wonder, we're gonna call

it Wonderball Wonder Bread to plug up your pipes before you sweat them,

and they will dissolve later on.

So you don't need to worry about it.

But Wonder Bread is a plumbing tool

which makes you think about eating it.

Right?

and there's nothing to it.

It is squishy.

That's why you can make it up into balls.

Right.

it's fun to shoot across the table.

I thought you had a wonder ball story though.

actually, we have a Wonder ball story in our book.

Family Tree Food Stories,

where I saw it.

Yeah.

Anyway, Sylvia, we chatted earlier and you said flour

could tell you where I'm from.

I'm not convinced.

Feels kind of like flour's kind of neutral to everything, but especially now.

Yeah.

you know, that's a bold claim, but it's kind of historical fact, isn't it?

It is.

So if I looked at your grandmother's bread, I could probably tell you,

or guess where your family's from.

Well, you can go pretty fast to get there South,

Kentucky Beyond Kentucky, right?

either the backwoods,

So we did some episodes or past episodes.

Remember like the Italian show we did a few weeks back, and between 1880 and

1924, More than 20 million immigrants came through Ellis Island, they didn't

just bring trunks and their clothing and all their precious belongings, but

they brought the bread and the gravy and the soup traditions, and all of which

included flour in most of those recipes.

So Italian families tried to find the flour to make their rustic globes

of bread even richer than the bland stuff that we had here, and to make

them feel like they were back home.

Eastern European families, used a high gluten flour for rye bread.

and Kahala bread, especially during Sabbath and special holiday traditions

and the German and the Polish immigrants.

Now you were talking about seed breads.

We have a Polish restaurant by us that has this amazing seed bread.

That It feels like it weighs 20 pounds

It's

like.

Florida, in Brooksville.

it's, well, it's in Spring Hill, Florida.

It's called Cracovia, and the food there is excellent.

It's very homemade.

Although I have to, laugh.

There was a, there was a, a waitress there.

, One dinner that we had for a celebration.

Bob and I were celebrating an anniversary or birthday and she was Chinese,

so, not to discriminate Polish and Chinese, but I don't expect to have a

Chinese server at a Polish restaurant.

She was lovely though.

Her name was Mai and she was lovely.

But the Polish and the Germans were looking for more of a denser

type of rye with whole grain flours and seeds and others.

And those were, just part of the country and the regions that they brought here in

the tradition they brought to the state.

So flour is still important in family traditions and the connecting the

strength of who we are and where we came from even today, which.

I think we take for granted how those, specialty breads that are, you buy at

Whole Foods or Sprouts or other places are made and why, where they all came from.

Yeah, sure.

So flour is kind of like an edible passport, huh?

I think that's a pretty cool statement.

Thank you.

speaking of edible statements, let's take a quick break.

So, Sylvia, let's take a little step further back to our country,

back to the American South, which is your territory where,

Yeah, baby.

right?

Yep.

Where there's a softer.

Winter wheat that grows there and apparently it's, I

mean, you say it's beautiful.

I, the low grain, the less gluten and the results in a

tender sweet, delicious spread

And since you're talking Southern now, uh, move over.

Move over girl.

I'm taking over.

Yankee Nancy.

That's right.

You can have it.

Yankee, Nancy, p And now, here's where chemistry walks

into the kitchen before the mid 18 hundreds, if you want bread to rise.

What did you use?

You used yeast, right?

Which meant time.

Well, we never have enough of that, do we?

So there was, fermentation had to take place and the need to plan ahead.

A lot of the time that needed to let the bread rise can take up to several

hours, if not a full afternoon at times.

And so that's when baking powder arrives and everything speeds up.

Everything Okay.

Tell me more.

Okay.

baking powder is just chemistry waiting to happen and there's so much to baking.

That is chemistry, by the way.

And there's a base baking soda and acid like mono calcium phosphate

don't, I sound like a science guru and cornstalks to keep it dry.

And you add liquid and boom, carbon dioxide bubbles form, and takes over.

And that's your rise.

No yeast, no waiting.

So I'm gonna say that southern biscuits are really basically

an edible science experiment.

Yeah.

I'm gonna have to think about the next time Bob orders,

biscuits and gravy, because I am not a biscuits and gravy girl,

That is un-American, Nancy.

Alright, I'm ashamed of you.

Anyway, we'll let you get a pass.

This time you might say, you're not into it, but you're talking

about some delicious chemistry.

Eventually, manufacturers combine soft wheat flour, baking powder, and salt into

one product called self raising flour.

Yay.

Now biscuits could be on the table in 20 minutes, and that

shaped southern hospitality and dinner didn't require half a day.

and it was soft biscuits.

Those wonderful soft biscuits.

Now I like a little crusty on the outside, but I always remember, that's

my biggest memory of my grandmother was her baking biscuits she had on her apron

and she was always baking biscuits.

Do you wanna hear the most searing story that I remember of

my grandmother baking biscuits?

You probably don't wanna hear this,

and you okay?

You can cut it out if you want.

However, my grandmother accidentally baked a kitten.

The kitten had crawled into the oven, and I vivid memory as a child of watching

her weep for hours, Now there's a family story that's hard to tell.

But it's real.

Back in those days, animals, were cold they just like, they'd crawl into car

motors, they would crawl into ovens.

So check your oven if you got any cats around.

Anyway, that was my vision of my grandmother making biscuts

I can't imagine.

Oh my goodness.

Oh, that's so sad.

She was heartbroken.

But, so I'm, like I said, I'm never gonna think about a biscuit

quite the same again, but I, think it's a fascinating about self-rising flour.

Now I know a little bit more about it because gluten development really is

real, I, I've made biscuits and I've tried, I guess I'm just not a southern

cook, but I did try to make biscuits the first time we were down here.

my sister makes biscuits like to die for.

She's down out in Oklahoma

I don't, I don't know how she learned it, but

Can I ask a question about that?

Does she use self-rising flour?

Do you

I believe so.

It was whatever was in the kitchen when she came to

visit one day and she made them for biscuits and gravy.

She made for the aides that were taking care of mom and dad.

And they all said, when Cindy comes back, the first thing we want her

to do is make biscuits and gravy.

Really well.

I'm just wondering about that.

Maybe you can find out sometime, because I always stay away from self-rising flour.

I always use all purpose, but I don't know why.

Now

that I've

know.

learned about all of this, I'm

I wonder whether all purpose is the same as self-rising.

I never even thought about it.

You have to add baking soda.

I mean, and you have to add baking powder if you're gonna make biscuits.

I don't, do that all the time, but I would think, and so maybe I, you

know, I just always stayed away from self-rising, but now that I've

looked at this, maybe I shouldn't, I

Yeah.

don't know.

I've made a couple of biscuit sinkers.

I've tried, they're not fluffy, they're not pretty, but maybe I should have

made bagels instead of biscuits.

'cause I

Yeah.

Chewy.

Very chewy.

Mm-hmm.

a little bagels and locks or biscuits and locks.

Might have tried that one instead of biscuits and gravy,

Mm-hmm.

but.

We have many talents.

Each person has their talents, so don't worry about it.

But did you know that, flour also has a different kind of

history beyond an explosion, beyond going up into space, beyond being

self-rising and making biscuits?

There's another flour identity that we can't forget, and that's during

World War I and World War ii, where American families were encouraged

to observe wheat list Wednesdays.

Now say that three times fast, right?

Because the more wheat we could get to our soldiers overseas to feed them.

The better off we were as a country and grandmothers adjusted.

The recipes and the flour became a way to show their pledge of support to

the country and to be more patriotic.

Now I have to say, we did a show on, um.

on cookbooks a couple of weeks ago, and in one of the cookbooks that I found not

too long ago, I found it was fascinating.

It was from the late thirties, early forties, so somewhere around our

entry into World War ii, the recipe actually talks about flour

rationing for the war effort.

Fascinating.

with a lot of other things.

Right, so next time you're in a junk shop or an antique store,

take a look at some of the old antique cookbooks that are there, because I

think they tell a story about what's gone on in our country as well,

and speaking of things that travel through generations,

why don't we talk about one of your favorites, sourdough and

sourdough.

Absolutely.

That is one of my favorites.

And you know, sourdough starter is a living culture.

Wild yeast and bacteria that you feed, maintain, keep alive, and families have.

We've done shows on this, have starters that are well over a hundred

years old and have passed down like jewelry or a good cast iron pan.

Yeah, There are documented starters from the Gold Rush era in

Alaska that date back to the 1890s that are still alive and bubbling today.

And miners back then were so dependent on their starters as a food source

because that kept them going when they couldn't find anything else, they kept

those vials of the starter wrapped around their neck like a piece of jewelry.

So we did an episode on.

Sourdough back in July of last year, and I'll put that in the show

notes, but I can't imagine a gold miner or even a cowboy out west

with sleeping with his starter.

I think that's kind of creepy.

little weird, but you know it worked.

Right.

And it kind of reminds me of, you know, Billy Bob Thornton, the guy who's so

famous now for Landman on the show again.

Right.

I love him.

He's such a great

character.

He is a character.

Right, and his, well his wife, I think he's been married like

about six or seven times, but his former wife, Angelina Jolie, they kept vials of

their own blood around each other's neck.

So it's not necessarily a flour story, but maybe it is.

I don't know.

well, you know.

could start a trend.

I know.

Yeah.

I'm not gonna keep my flour start my flour dough starter around my neck.

Sylvia, next time you see me for sure.

Yeah.

They'll stick to the sourdough.

Don't put that other stuff in

I know.

I know.

But it might be a little bit more romantic to have the blood around

your neck, I guess, than flour stove.

Flower dough starter,

and he'll bring you down from the ledge.

right?

I think so.

But at least it lasted a little longer than the Hollywood relationship.

So we know today, still.

Oh really?

Uh, and the point is a sourdough starter is a living family

loo made from flour and water.

You couldn't get more basic than that, and you're literally tasting and eating

history will and gram a flour at a time.

Well, and that's what Family Tree food his stories is about.

It's a story in the history of the rich bag of flour, and depending

upon where you are in the country, whether it's a bag or a sack.

I have to ask you.

Is home milling realistic or is it just for bread nerds?

Well, you know, maybe a little bit of both.

those of us who still wanna experiment just a teeny bit in the kitchen, but

it is still growing in popularity.

The whole wheat berries you can find online in Amazon, you can buy

them by like bushels full or bags full freshly milled flour contains

a lot of oils and nutrients.

In fact, I asked Sharon, our neighbor about this, I said,

so Why do you do it and why does it, does it really taste better?

And she goes, oh, absolutely.

It's healthier for you.

It doesn't quite have the gluten that you would necessarily have

like at least a higher source of gluten and it tastes nutty.

she says there's a significant flavor difference from the organic.

Heirloom types of seeds that she uses and a more noticeably richer and, stronger

flavor in the sourdough that she's making.

So it's kind of interesting to see how this mills aren't necessarily as monstrous

and outrageous as we think they are.

Sit on the counter

Yeah, they can actually sit on the counter.

It's not, I think of the old grinding mills.

There was a, a town up north that we visited when kids in Tarrytown,

New York, and they showed the stones, the stone grinding mills.

I don't know, they must have those in, down in, the south when you were a kid.

The big round stones that they would

grind the flour and the watermills that did things.

So we've come, we've come a long way since

Pretty far.

Yeah.

we went from that to.

To industrialization for convenience, and now we're slowing down on purpose

or deconstructing everything again.

And you know, that's okay.

I think the beauty is there's choices.

You can do those things if you have time and, and just into it and don't have to

be, but um, I think it's kind of cool.

Yeah.

Kind of cool.

It shouldn't be feel guilted if you don't.

No, absolutely not.

And in fact, I think it's fun to, if you had a chance to try it,

to do it, maybe get your kids involved or grandkids and see if.

This is something that you can try making something from and if it tastes better

than Wonder Bread or something else.

so there's a real history lesson in flour, which I find fascinating,

there's a history lesson in just about everything we eat.

So I hope listeners, that when you walk down the baking aisle the

next time in your grocery store.

That you realize or just think about the history lesson that flour tells us when

you're looking at the gold medal or the, there's the there's a Bob's flour that's

out there and all of flour tradition.

Oh, white lily.

That's another one that's big

down

yeah, that's a Southern

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Lilly.

So it's part of our heritage and culture and tradition, and

And.

different way of looking at the baking aisle.

So we've gone from stones to factories and now back to the kitchen.

We've almost gone full circle.

'cause flour tells us where we came from, what our soil could grow, what

our families valued, and sometimes how fast we needed dinner on the table.

Now that's reality and practical.

And that's not Neutral.

That's identity in a mixing bowl.

That's kind of a cool thing when you think about it, right?

And it's even more delicious and rich.

Pun intended.

So if you haven't listened to last week's episode, please go to podcast

at Family Tree Food and Stories.

There's a link in the show notes, which is at the bottom of this episode.

You'll go down and just, if you don't know how to do that, just scroll down

beyond the listening part, and there's all sorts of additional information in there.

The link to their book, the link to the other episodes, and some interesting

facts about flour that you can maybe use at your next dinner time conversation.

Yeah, sounds good.

So a quiz.

I'm wondering, are you gonna give this quiz, like, where did flour come from with

your grandkids next time you see them?

I have, Jack, who is at that curious age.

He's 10, so he and I have fun together.

I'm might have to mention it to him.

He's also, these kids cook now,

they cooking classes.

I love that the kids do this because it also teaches them self survival

or, or self-sufficiency in so many ways.

But, I know too many people who don't know how to cook, maybe it's

a quiz you could put out on the tables at Azure patio and restaurant,

Yeah.

There you go.

Actually, we are looking at some of those kinds of things that would be simple, like

or sauerkraut or something like that, you

Right.

Where did your food come from?

Beyond the kitchen, behind

Yeah.

with your fabulous chef, who is

terrific, but.

take up chicken fingers for now though.

Well, you can wrap those in a flour tortilla.

So

there you go.

Stay hidden from you.

please tune in every Thursday because every meal has a

story and every story is a feast.

Remember, podcast DOT family tree, food and story.

It's time to go.

Maybe bake something.

I'm gonna go stir up some flour or maybe grind some flour.

we'll see you later and take care.

Cheers.