constant state of flux

There are a few reasons why I wanted to buy a grain mill to grind my own flour from scratch. Here they are:

I want to go through the complete process for sprouted wheat sourdough bread from wheat berry, to sprouted berry, to dehydrated berry, to milled flour, through sourdough starter, to proved bread, to baked bread; the whole thing. It is a process I want to perfect over time and I will try no-knead, kneaded, half sprouted/half soured, through many other possibilities, to get the feel of the bread making process, to understand what the fascination is with this thing called ‘our daily’. I want to perfect sprouted wheat pizza base, sprouted wheat pasta and sprouted wheat pie crust for my pork pies.

I want to enter into the mystique of this foodstuff and find out how it was originally prepared; I want to replicate what my ancestors would have done to make their bread, because I am gluten intolerant and I want to continue to have some grains in my diet, not just meat and dairy. From what I understand, the grain would have been left to sprout naturally in hayricks out in the fields before threshing, something that has been totally overlooked in modern grain processing today, even in store bought sourdough bread and this is what I want to experiment with. Each household would have possessed a grain mill, pictured here and the village would have had an oven, which was used by each household in turn to bake up to a month’s worth of bread.

My children love bread and I want to show them the whole process from start to finish. There is such a pagan culture surrounding the complete process from harvest to consumption; many songs are still being performed today on the subject of John Barleycorn, telling of the seasonal cycle of birth, death and re-birth through the barley crop – blessed and honored lifeblood of the community, something sacred yet everyday as to have goddesses and gods represented by it, festivities centered around it and folklore woven from it.

Grains have long, long been coveted by pre-industrial societies, as it was with the inhabitants of the isolated Swiss Valley Weston Price visited in the 1930′s:

The hardihood of the people was splendidly illustrated by a woman of 62 years who carried an enormous load of rye on her back at an altitude of about 5,000 feet. We met her later and talked to her, and found that she was extraordinarily well developed and well preserved. She showed us her grandchildren who had fine physiques and facial developments. The rye is so precious that while being carried the heads are protected by wrapping them in canvas so that not a kernel will be lost. The rye is thrashed by hand and ground in stone mills which were formerly hand-turned. For centuries the natives ground their rye in this type of hand mill [see above illustration].

- ‘Nutrition and Physical Degeneration’ by Weston A. Price.

I ordered my grain mill today, it is a Waldner Biotech Farina Grain Mill, beautifully made out of larch wood. I hope it will last me for several years to come. Before I am able to make any flour however, I need to prepare the berries, which I will sprout before grinding. I found wheat, oat and rye berries from the health food shop and will be sprouting them tomorrow ready to be made into the sourdough starter. I have also found a site/forum called: thefreshloaf.com, which has so much information about bread making, it will take me a very long time to wade through it all. There seem to be many, many people there trying many, many things – experimenting with trial and error, sweat and tears to produce beautiful loaves made with love.