Cooking with wholegrains

Cooking with WHOLEGRAINS BY ELLEN and VREST ORTON Introduction by VREST ORTON Published by FARRAR, STRAUS AND YOUNG, INC. NEW YORK . Third Printing COPYRIGHT, 1951, BY MILDRED ELLEN ORTON, WESTON, VERMONT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK, OR PORTION THEREOF,IN ANY FORM. MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Designed by Vrest Orton [illustration: The Water Powered Stone Mill on the Wantastiquet River, Weston, Vermont] ELLEN and VREST ORTON THE Mystery of the Mill “And when I have broken the staff of your bread— Ye shall eat and not be satisfied.” COOKING BOOK devoted exclusively to cooking with wholegrain flour is such an old idea that it’s brand new. Up to 1850 there was no other kind of cooking book. Yet there is probably not in print today, and certainly there has not been published this side of three-quarters of a century, a book of this character. This paradox can be best explained by a brief excursion into the history of milling. But before this excursion into the past, I must define my terms. What is this wholegrain that we have all heard so much talk about in the last few years, particularly during the last war? The answer is simple enough . . . it is a// of the grain kernel ground into meal or flour, whether it be corn, rye, wheat or oats. Some confusion arises due to the several names given the wholegrain wheat product. In England, it is variously called wholemeal, entire wheat, wholegrain, and whole wheaten flour and in America, Graham flour and ‘“‘wholewheat”’ flour. I prefer the term wholegrain flour to distinguish from that now prostituted word wholewheat, which in America has no more meaning whatsoever due to the shrewd manipulation of the English language by the millers and bakers or their advertising agents. For who/ewheat is no longer a word meaning a// of the wheat berry. You can buy “wholewheat’”’ bread and “‘wholewheat” flour but you are in no sense getting a// of the kernel of wheat. The millers and bakers get around the federal laws under which manufacturers are supposed to attach true names descriptive of their products by claiming that their product is wholewheat or, in their language, all wheat . . . that is to say, no barley, no corn, no oats. But in no sense is it all of the wheat. Now when and why did the millers, already characterized as shrewd, begin to use less than all of the wheat berry which nature in its munificence furnished to mankind? The story begins in the Stone Age when wheat berries were crushed or pounded between stones by the females of the tribe. After a few thousand years they learned to use saddle-stones, or one concave stone upon which the grain was spread and another stone to rub or grind the grain into a coarse and primitive meal. Even today in Mexico this saddle-stone, called the metata there, is used for grinding corn from which the Mexicans make their tortillas. The third and last development of the stone was the quern or the stone rotation mill, the first complete milling machine. In existence as early as the second century B.C. this device was composed of two round French Buhr, or granite stones into which grooves were cut (the top turning on the stationary bottom stone), and it persisted down to about 75 years ago in England and Amer- — ica, and indeed is found in back country regions even today. All of these aforementioned processes obviously ground a// of the kernel of corn, rye, oats, or wheat into meal, taking no part out and therefore giving real meaning to the word wholegrain. Then came the revolution.