[Sca-cooks] Types of Wheat for Bread

[Holly Stockley]

And now that I think about it, if you were looking to pursue strains of wheat in question and what might be similar there are a few places to start.
First, archaeological examinations of thatch, which sometimes date back that far and can be typed for strains:http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba58/feat1.shtml
The heritage wheat conservancy:http://www.growseed.org/BROCHURE.pdf
And, if you're willing to do some hound-dogging of your own to determine which landrace strains go back that far, the USDA offers small (5 gr) samples of about every strain in their database:http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=11896
I have a few samples lying around yet.  However, this year the bunny rabbits ate ALL of my Dutch Winter Barley.  Every.  Last.  Stalk.  (Hassenpfeffer, anyone?)
Femke


> Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 20:48:34 -0500
> From: alysk at ix.netcom.com
> To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Types of Wheat for Bread
> 
> 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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