[Sca-cooks] Types of Wheat for Bread

[Dan Schneider]

Well, I know for a fact that at least one thing they say is wrong; they quote someone to say that grain is crushed by grindstones, and it wasn't until roller-milling that grain was cut in the milling process. That is absolutely untrue, at least as far back as the 18th century (I haven't looked at earlier grindstones or rotary quernstones, so I can't say for certain about before the American colonial period) The grooves which are chiselled into the bed and runner stones would act as scissors blades, and cut the crain into increasingly small pieces (the grooves get shallower as they get closer to the outer edge of the stone). As a result, I'd be a little cautious about trusting their assertions without getting corroboration 

Dan

--- On Sat, 11/27/10, Elise Fleming <alysk at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> From: Elise Fleming <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Types of Wheat for Bread
> To: "sca-cooks" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Date: Saturday, November 27, 2010, 1:48 AM
> Johnnae wrote:
> 
> >Have you looked at the print editions of C. Anne Wilson
> or Peter
> >Brear's All the Kings Cooks?
> >How about Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast
> Cookery?
> 
> Yes.  I looked through those and got some
> information.
> 
> >Otherwise
> >http://historicalfoods.com/5098/medieval-and-tudor-flour/
> 
> I have a problem with this site - and would appreciate
> being corrected.  The site says: "...follow the steps
> below which calls for an 80% Plain (unbleached) stoneground
> flour with a 20% addition of Wholemeal (wholewheat)
> stoneground flour. What we are doing is adding back in the
> 20% bran that modern milling and boulting methods removes
> but the Medieval and Tudor miller could not."
> 
> From Elizabeth David as well as Karen Hess, they state that
> manchet bread (which the questioner is considering
> attempting) was made from the finest, whitest flour. 
> David particularly mentions using a lava-type millstone
> which, with the grooves cut into it, could be set to grind
> exceedingly fine and, with bolting, produce a very white
> flour.
> 
> It's been my impression that statements such as
> historicalfoods makes, are another of the fallacies and
> old-wives'-tales about the past.  "They were too
> primitive to get things as good as _we_ can get them." 
> Am I off base or are they?
> 
> Alys
> 
> -- Elise Fleming
> alysk at ix.netcom.com
> alyskatharine at gmail.com
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/8311418@N08/sets/
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