Heirloom Grain Bread Tasting - Jan 18 & 19, 2014

Loaves made from two of the heirloom wheat varieties we sampled. Appalachian White on the left and Frederick on the right.

I was browsing the web last week and I came across the website for a local bakery that I was not aware of... the Wide Awake Bakery in Trumansburg NY. After checking out some photos of their work I came across a link that said "Bread Tasters Needed".  It turned out that the folks at the bakery, in conjunction with other artisan bakeries in NY and New England were collaborating with a team of researchers from Cornell and the USDA-ARS (among others) to investigate the suitability of heirloom wheat varieties for agriculture and baking.

The long term goal of the project is to help bring back strains of wheat that have been largely neglected with the advent of industrial wheat farming in the mid-west, ultimately developing a local wheat economy for the northeastern US. These are strains of red & white, spring & winter wheat that were bred and grown locally in past centuries, and produce well in local conditions.

The baking was done on Friday by Stephan's team at Wide Awake Bakery along with Jeffery Hamelman of King Arthur Bakery in Vermont, and Sharon Leader of Bread Alone in Woodstock, NY. The bakers made loaves out of several varieties of locally grown wheat that was grown specifically for this research program, and evaluated the flours for different baking characteristics.  I missed out on that part of it, but the next day Michelle and I joined them, and about 20 others in the Food Science building at Cornell to be trained as bread tasters in preparation for the tasting event on Sunday.

The training was developed by Liz Clark, a coffee connoisseur from Ithaca's Gimme Coffee. It involved tastings and detailed discussion of foods and flavors ranging from roasted hazelnuts to cultured cream. We sampled, savored and discussed for much of the afternoon using a flavor wheel to help guide our conversation.

The next morning we arrived early to do some training tastes of both cooked whole grain and bread. We considered grains of Einkorn and Spelt, and baguette and sourdough loaves for practice (and the bread nerd in me was very excited to taste Einkorn for the first time). Samples were rated by color, consistency, shape, and of course flavor... along with over a dozens other categories. What followed was a full day of tasting, both bread and cooked grain. We had seven varieties of each and the bread samples were tasted twice.

The bakers used a standard formula for 100% whole grain loaves. The results were about as hearty as they come. Bursting with nutty malty flavors, varying degrees of sourness, and packed with well beyond your RDA of dietary fiber.

The breads were similar overall since a standard formula was used, but subtle differences where definitely there. I had never focused so carefully on a single bite of bread, but  when examined in such detail the experience is definitely kind of profound. Flavors come in waves. Sour, sweet, and bitter all make an appearance but in varying order and with different intensities.

After all of the samples had been tasted the hidden identities of the wheat varieties we sampled were revealed. It turned out that my two favorites for both bread and grain, were a soft winter wheat called "Frederick", and a hard winter wheat variety known as "Appalachian White".

By the time we left I have to admit my taste buds were exhausted. But I learned to focus on bread in a whole new way. Not just in terms of flavor, but the subtleties of texture and appearance as well. I was pretty impressed by how something so simple as bread could be so complex when considered in such detail. Who knows, maybe someday bread tastings will rival wine tastings here in the finger lakes.