Going with the Grain

For many years I’ve avoided refined flour, bleached or unbleached. My attitude toward refined flour started when I noticed that grain moths never show up in refined flour. They know there are no nutrients in it and that it would not support life. I noticed also that whole wheat flour in the cabinet had to be protected from grain moths. If moths got in the flour, they would thrive and reproduce.

Why then, do humans go to a great deal of trouble to remove the nutritious parts off wheat so we can eat whitebread, muffins, biscuits, croissants, and scones? Why do we eat pasta made from refined flour?  This stuff is just starch. Its nutrition is the equivalent of library paste.

I’ve made whole wheat bread for many years, buying whole wheat flour in 25-pound bags. But recently I accidentally ordered a 25-pound bag of whole wheat berries instead of flour. My first thought when the bag arrived was that we could feed the berries to our chickens. But I asked Laurie’s opinion and she said that cooked wheat berries have culinary uses. This triggered a memory from my childhood. Every year when Dad harvested wheat on his farm, his sister Janet, would beg him for some wheat berries to cook. Dad indulged her, but we thought her eating habits strange.

Now, I wondered whether I might be missing something. Being rather cowardly, I gave some berries to friends to try. Everyone loved them, so I cooked a cupful and made the cooked berries into a salad, adding diced cucumber, tomato, green onions, and red pepper, with lemon juice and vinegar as a dressing. The result was much like a tabouli salad, but chewier. It was delicious!

Now I’m sold on cooked wheat berry salad and have some berries cooking right now. I haven’t whether to make a salad with an oriental slant or an Indian-inspired salad with curry. Whichever I decide, I expect it to be good.  I'm having fun going with the grain.

Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domer