Latest / Family Tree Food Stories / Why NASA Banned Bread (The Secret Life of Flour)

Transcript

Why NASA Banned Bread (The Secret Life of Flour) · Family Tree Food Stories

0:05
Nancy May: Hello everybody.
0:06
It's another episode of Family Tree Food and Stories with Nancy May and Sylvia.
0:11
Lovely.
0:12
If you haven't heard our last show, we talked about roadside treasures,
0:17
you might wanna go back and take a listen to that one because
0:20
it's pretty fun and interesting.
0:22
And if you're not a subscriber, it's time to hit subscribe.
0:26
Go to podcast.family tree food stories.com on that main page.
0:31
You can go to any of your favorite podcast listening platforms, or
0:35
you can subscribe from there.
0:37
And also, one more question.
0:40
Good things come in threes as they say.
0:42
Right, Sylvia?
0:43
Sylvia Lovely: For sure.
0:44
Nancy May: please take a moment and just like us and give us a rating.
0:48
Let us know how we're doing.
0:50
We're also doing a, a listener survey, but we'll talk about that later on.
0:54
In any case, let's get on with the show.
0:57
Sylvia.
0:57
How's that?
0:58
Sylvia Lovely: What fun to take up flour today.
1:01
Nancy May: yeah, right now, so I've got a question for you to get started.
1:05
What did you eat today?
1:08
Sylvia Lovely: Uh oh.
1:08
You're always trying to catch me in the middle of something, so what is it?
1:13
Nancy May: Well, I'm gonna pretty much guarantee that you and everybody
1:16
else that's listening here today ate something with flour in it.
1:20
Now we're not talking garden flour.
1:22
I'm talking about sandwich flour.
1:23
The white flour that you get in the bags, and I'm gonna guess everybody
1:28
has in there, are pantry somewhere.
1:29
at least if you haven't eaten it today, you've probably eaten something, even
1:33
if you're gluten intolerant in the last.
1:35
Couple of days or so, like a sandwich or tortilla, maybe a
1:39
cookie or two or three or four.
1:42
Even a Girl Scout cookie.
1:43
'cause it's Girl Scout cookie season here.
1:45
seasoned buy
1:45
Sylvia Lovely: Oh yeah,
1:46
that's right.
1:47
Nancy May: do you know what kind of flour it was in that
1:50
Sylvia Lovely: Zing.
1:50
I gotcha.
1:51
Yeah.
1:52
Sourdough.
1:53
Nancy May: you got me?
1:55
Well, more often than not, we don't know the story of the flour behind
1:59
all the delicious things that we've eaten over the years and maybe
2:02
even just yesterday, including what grandmas and moms have cooked.
2:07
But over 30,000 years ago, We as humans started out grinding grain.
2:13
Now that isn't just suddenly over the top of, what we expected it
2:17
would be, but grinding green in like stone ground stuff, hard work.
2:22
And today we're back to grinding many of our own flours.
2:26
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
2:27
It seems like everything old is new again.
2:29
And I love that trend.
2:30
For some people.
2:32
I kind of like how tradition has gone and adopts almost any way
2:36
we do things now and that's good.
2:38
but the stories behind it all from stone slabs to industrial rollers.
2:43
Now back to the kitchen counter, which in most cases now we
2:46
know are stone slabs, right?
2:48
Granite.
2:48
Marble . but anyway, I have images of cave women, just like in the kitchen now.
2:54
And wouldn't they love it?
2:56
'cause even if they still made their own, they could make those choices.
2:59
Right.
3:00
I wonder if those women ever thought about what might happen with food ingredients
3:04
they used way back when and, well, in the early years, BC years, makes you
3:09
really wanna have a time capsule and just.
3:11
Go back.
3:12
Maybe the Flintstones will fly us there someday on one of their rock airplanes.
3:17
Right?
3:17
Nancy May: Right.
3:18
30,000 years ago, people were crushing wild seeds on rocks, like I said.
3:22
But I can't picture myself doing that.
3:25
Still people are doing it today and it kind of makes me think like like
3:30
my KitchenAid is a space age tool compared to some of those things.
3:33
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
3:34
Nancy May: but it's kind of a funny thing to even think that a KitchenAid could be
3:37
such a space age that I'm not gonna get that outright a space age kind of thing.
3:43
If you were even, you know, I would say 60 years ago or so.
3:47
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
3:47
You know, people made grain out of anything., We hear
3:50
about it today, people.
3:52
Picking stuff out of their yards.
3:53
Well, seriously, that's what people did.
3:56
Grain met survival, whatever it was, consisting of.
3:59
But I love this, the birthplace, the birthplace of agriculture is believed to
4:05
have taken place in the Fertile Crescent, which if you see it on a map, it really
4:09
literally is a big crescent that goes approximately, it's from the Nile Valley.
4:13
Through modern day Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq to the Persian Gulf.
4:18
And if you can visualize that, I think it's pretty interesting information.
4:22
And we don't typically even talk about this stuff it's not like
4:25
you go home and have dinner and, oh, honey, did you read about.
4:28
The fertile Crescent today, you know, but you don't.
4:32
but the important part to all of this is that flour allowed people
4:35
to stay put and not have to roam.
4:38
It was kind of the birth of the agricultural age,
4:40
Nancy May: it I just can't believe it's, it's so interesting that we're
4:43
actually going back to so many of those roots and it's, I guess it's really
4:48
more intentional than we realize.
4:50
Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
4:51
It is intentional mindfulness, people want transparency.
4:54
They wanna know what's in their stuff, when you grind your own
4:57
wheat berries at home, you see it, you smell it, you know what went in.
5:01
There's no mystery bag.
5:02
But then there's also stuff on the counter.
5:04
That you have learned to trust.
5:06
I mean, you can like research it now where they did the grinding, but
5:10
it doesn't have all the additives and all of that sort of thing.
5:13
So yeah, it's, good any way you look at it.
5:15
Nancy May: The, the mystery bag of flour, I'm gonna call it because I
5:18
have to tell you, I have tons of these different kinds of flour in my pantry.
5:22
I've got rice flour, I've got wheat flour, I've got oat flour.
5:26
I'm not even sure what to do with half of it other than the rice
5:29
flour's not supposed to make my bread stick to the counter, which
5:32
it doesn't because it doesn't have gluten in it, which is interesting.
5:35
But I have a neighbor who's gone back to grinding her own.
5:38
Bread flour and I looked into what it might, what I might actually
5:42
need to try and do this myself, and I found that I had all the tools.
5:47
Okay, we've got rocks.
5:48
I'm not going to do that one.
5:49
But all I needed really is a, an attachment for my KitchenAid, which
5:54
totally surprised me that I could do with something as simple as that.
5:57
But so many people who have gluten issues like Celiacs apparently are really
6:02
better off grinding their own grains from traditional or ancient grains because
6:06
then they'll know where it's coming from and all those extra little additives that
6:10
go in that are sort of less organic are not impacting the flour to make it more
6:16
difficult for the gut to actually digest.
6:19
But even just doing the grinding, I would imagine it
6:22
would be extremely relaxing and.
6:24
Somewhat satisfying for doing something from scratch.
6:26
I'll have to give it a try myself and report back
6:29
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, well, you tell me all about it.
6:33
I mean, I like the fact that you can go to the shelf and you see all this stuff.
6:37
I mean, chickpea flour, oh my gosh, what is that right?
6:40
Nancy May: I wouldn't
6:41
Sylvia Lovely: Allmond flour, all, all of those things.
6:43
so I'm intrigued by it.
6:45
But did you know, and this is a little science experiment person
6:49
inside of me, that flour explodes.
6:52
And here's kind of the scientific process, very rudimentary, where it's
6:56
coming from me, but it's like flour has tiny, tiny, tiny particles and
7:01
when it spreads and there's some sort of combustion, 'cause it has carbs and
7:06
proteins and if it creates a dust cloud, it interacts with oxygen and boom.
7:13
Isn't that interesting?
7:14
Nancy May: knowing what's going on in the world today, I guess maybe
7:18
we could have the military call us for a little help along the way.
7:23
And I did know that flour combusted, and in 1878, the Washburn Flour Mill
7:28
in Minneapolis exploded when just like you said, flour particles were in the
7:32
air and ignited with a fire spark.
7:35
And I'm thinking, you know, some fat boss, of course, I've got this idea of
7:39
this fat Joe with a stogie cigar walking around telling us women what to do.
7:44
Not in my book, but in any case.
7:47
The sad part is that 18 people died from that explosion and in the
7:52
right conditions, like you said, it becomes industrial dynamite.
7:56
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
7:56
if we have any listeners from Min uh, Minnesota.
7:59
that's where those big wheat fields are all across the plains, and a
8:03
lot of it happened in Minneapolis.
8:05
And in fact, when I read, what you had written about this, I remembered going
8:10
to the flour Museum in Minneapolis.
8:12
And it's all about all of those interesting events that
8:16
led us to where we are today.
8:18
Nancy May: Who would've thought that flour played such a role in, our country.
8:22
But the interesting part is that the flour mill that we're talking
8:26
about, the Washburn flour mill, well, when it was rebuilt, it eventually
8:30
became known as General Mills.
8:32
Sylvia Lovely: THE General Mills.
8:34
Nancy May: Yep.
8:34
That General Mills, the very same, that the gold medal flour bag that your
8:38
grandmother or, uh, well, I have on my shelf as well, it's a direct descendant
8:44
of the mill that blew up in 1878.
8:46
Sylvia Lovely: Hmm.
8:47
Nancy May: it's a story that just, it turns from a dust disaster and becomes
8:50
the most interesting, recognizable brand that we have in America today.
8:54
And it's not a bad comeback story, I'd say.
8:56
Right.
8:57
Sylvia Lovely: So every time someone pulls out a bag of gold medal, they're
9:00
basically holding a little piece of Minneapolis history and history for us.
9:05
and that's one very dramatic origin story.
9:08
Nancy May: Or maybe a little dynamite, like be careful
9:12
kids, if you are listening,
9:15
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
9:16
Nancy May: before you open that bag of flour.
9:18
But anyway, flour really does have a big story in every bag,
9:22
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, and we should also be more careful with
9:24
our kitchen adventures, right?
9:26
So
9:26
be careful.
9:26
Nancy May: I think.
9:27
I think so.
9:28
But speaking of flour, so this is kind of an interesting little tidbit.
9:32
Did you know that beyond the combustibility of flour, there's some
9:36
other reasons or there's some other issues around it of how it can be used?
9:40
And NASA does not allow flour bread products to go up in space.
9:47
Is that cool?
9:47
Sylvia Lovely: Hmm, no bread in space.
9:50
That does seem like cruel and unusual punishment.
9:52
Nancy May: Right, but think about it.
9:54
The crumbs are floating in the small little particle and granules, and they can
9:58
get stuck and trapped in all those high tech pieces of equipment and flour dust
10:04
in a contained, pressurized environment.
10:07
Well, there's your little scientific experiment, although I don't
10:09
think we want to try that one.
10:11
It could just be.
10:12
True and total mess.
10:14
I can't imagine that even our people in the Mills or the original
10:18
General Mills flour Place was even thinking about that at the time.
10:22
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
10:22
So, it's interesting, the most advanced humans on the planet have to find a
10:26
different way to have a sandwich, right?
10:28
Nancy May: yeah.
10:28
Not a traditional BLT or a ham and cheese, but or tortilla sandwich because
10:33
it's the tortillas that you can use.
10:35
They're soft.
10:35
They don't crumble.
10:36
They're flexible, and they stay intact.
10:38
And in 1985 tortillas became the preferred bread alternative for outer space.
10:44
Sylvia Lovely: All right.
10:45
Nancy May: Yeah.
10:45
Right.
10:46
Do you remember Tang?
10:47
Sylvia Lovely: Oh yeah.
10:49
Oh, I love that.
10:50
Have
10:50
a glass of
10:51
tang.
10:51
Nancy May: yep.
10:52
Tang was a breakfast drink of astronauts the slogan was for
10:56
spacemen and earthly families.
10:58
Although, I think, I have to say, I'm not sure, I'm kind of a feminist here.
11:02
I don't think we should say spacemen anymore for space women or maybe
11:06
space cadets and earthly families.
11:10
Sylvia Lovely: so the ancient flatbread, flour water heated on
11:12
a stone outlasted every innovation survived industrialization, and it is
11:17
now the choice of astronauts hurdling through orbit at 17 K miles per hour.
11:24
Ywe Ka.
11:26
Nancy May: I know it's hard to believe that it all started back three a
11:29
30,000, or maybe it's 30 million years ago, but a lot, a lot of years
11:33
ago when we were grinding seeds on rocks and now we're taking them into
11:38
space, which I think is so cool.
11:40
And that's a food story.
11:41
I mean, that's what we're about.
11:43
That's part of everything that we're talking about.
11:45
There's food and history and family and traditions, and it's from cavemen too.
11:50
Spacemen and women in
11:51
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
11:52
Yeah, you go girls, women started it and women are going to space.
11:57
I love it.
11:57
Nancy May: So let's talk about what's happening in the grocery stores because
12:00
flour used to just say all purpose, right?
12:04
the gold medal flour stuff, all the parents that our
12:06
parents used over the years.
12:08
Now, so many of those flour bags or sacks.
12:11
Now I have to ask you, do you call it a flour bag or do you call it a flour?
12:15
Sylvia Lovely: You know, I don't remember addressing it, but I
12:17
think, probably a flour bag.
12:19
But, I know you say bags, right?
12:21
Nancy May: I say bags, but I at West, I understand they say s
12:24
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
12:25
Interesting.
12:25
of course, you know, in my image, like of the museum, they
12:28
have these huge sour sacks.
12:31
They are like burlap sacks or something like that.
12:34
Something large.
12:35
where people really used flour probably a lot more than they do today, and
12:39
fed large families and all that kind of stuff, but we have all kinds
12:42
of different labels on them now.
12:44
We have organic.
12:45
I started noticing that, and I actually buy organic.
12:48
It's not that much more expensive and I'm not quite sure why, except
12:52
I feel like it's just more pure.
12:55
And, what about the non GMO thing and ancient grain?
12:58
Stone milled, regeneratively farmed.
13:00
I mean, you need a PhD in agriculture to get through this, don't you?
13:04
So let's make it easy.
13:05
Nancy May: Right.
13:06
It's like we have to learn a whole new language when we go to the grocery store,
13:09
or even if you're milling it yourself.
13:11
But that often gets confusing because the details behind these are.
13:14
Are always, well, they're not always what we think they are, and consumers
13:18
are asking, where is it all grown in?
13:20
What's it sprayed with and is it genetically modified?
13:23
Or how has it grown?
13:24
Or what does it even look like?
13:26
You know, I never saw a wheat field till we came down south.
13:29
Sylvia Lovely: I grew up around them.
13:31
Nancy May: Right.
13:32
Well, I, I certainly saw corn fields over the years, but
13:35
that was a little different.
13:36
But to see a wheat field if you've never seen one, it is absolutely beautiful when
13:41
it gets ripe and ready to be harvested.
13:44
But the term non GMO la labeling signifies, sort of a bigger
13:48
trust when you think about it.
13:50
And I'm not sure that's actually true.
13:52
However, maybe a false sense of security is a good thing to have sometimes.
13:56
Sylvia Lovely: yeah.
13:57
So the developing something bigger, trust.
13:59
and here's some details on why organic wheat avoids synthetic herbicides.
14:04
Like what is popularly known as Roundup and its technical name is
14:10
glyphosate to say that three times
14:14
Nancy May: Well wait a second.
14:15
Before you wait, before you go forward, I just wanna tell you this, and I don't know
14:18
it's true, but we had a fellow from the University of Florida come to our property
14:23
'cause we're looking at doing a Christmas
14:24
tree farm here.
14:26
And he's a PhD in plant science, and we have some invasive grass on our property.
14:32
And he said, oh, you need to get rid of that.
14:34
And he said, the only way to get rid of it, because it doesn't have seeds,
14:37
it's got rhizomes under the ground.
14:39
And that's how it, it multiplies.
14:41
He said, is to use Roundup.
14:43
I'm like, oh,
14:44
Sylvia Lovely: No.
14:45
Nancy May: Well, apparently, uh, now I don't know if this is true,
14:47
but I'm, I'm relying on the.
14:49
University of Florida, top guy, plant scientist for his information said that
14:56
Roundup used to be a safer product to use than it is today, that's because,
15:02
well, I guess it was during Vietnam, things got a little sketchy as far as the
15:06
quality of the herbicides, you know, to
15:10
Sylvia Lovely: clear the jungle
15:11
kind of thing.
15:12
Yeah.
15:12
Nancy May: And the type of roundup, which is basically what it was, the herbicide
15:17
that they used Agent Orange was filled with all sorts of other toxic chemicals.
15:21
'cause they didn't need to worry about purities.
15:24
And hence we don't necessarily know what's in our roundup today.
15:27
And that's
15:28
caused a lot of the problems.
15:29
Interesting.
15:30
Huh?
15:30
Sylvia Lovely: it was actually better before.
15:32
Nancy May: it was considered safe before Vietnam.
15:35
Yep.
15:36
Sylvia Lovely: take, uh, Erin Brockovich and ask her about that one.
15:39
Nancy May: I know, right?
15:40
Sylvia Lovely: Don't know that I believe it, but anyway, that's interesting.
15:44
Nancy May: But the debate on synthetic herbicides and everything, especially
15:47
like Roundup, has been, a question for many years in the US and Europe and
15:51
some countries have restricted more aggressively like other pesticides.
15:55
And you know, I didn't even consider or know that Europe was doing this more
15:59
aggressively than we were here in the states, but Bob and I learned about this
16:03
while we were raising bees because the type of chemicals that you can use on
16:07
bees to get rid of mites and other things.
16:10
Now I know this is not about flour, but in the long run it is because it's a plant
16:15
that needs, oh, flour doesn't pollinate by by bees, it pollinates by wind.
16:20
But anyway, it's still an interesting to understand that European flour
16:24
is still considered cleaner.
16:27
The perception of a better type of product has resulted going way back when
16:32
Sylvia Lovely: You know, some of the reason for that though is
16:35
people just think of Europe as being old, worldly and more traditional
16:41
and more artisanal and craft.
16:44
it seems smaller to us.
16:46
you think of Italian cooking, you always think of the little villages, right?
16:50
You don't think of big cities like we have, even though they have big cities.
16:54
So I think there's a lot of romanticism to Europe and Paris and places like that.
16:59
And so you think their products are better, I think there's some of
17:03
Nancy May: we're just the rugged haws out here in, in the states, but,
17:06
Sylvia Lovely: That's all.
17:08
Nancy May: but people are paying more attention to, getting back to
17:11
their own wheat and I am surprised it's such the trend that's such
17:15
how big of a trend it actually is that's happening here in the states.
17:18
So I did a little experiment.
17:20
Well, I did an do experiment.
17:22
I went doing a little research to see what a home mill would cost.
17:29
Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
17:30
Nancy May: They're crazy expensive.
17:32
So there's some teeny tiny ones that I, I probably get like a tablespoon
17:36
of wheat out of it at a time, which I wouldn't spend the time doing that.
17:40
But the average price of them for, for being able to do it yourself
17:45
are running anywhere from, let's say, $300 to $700 dollars.
17:49
I mean, that's a lot of flour you gotta do.
17:51
And one I found was $15,000, which would take up the entire
17:55
counter, or corner of my kitchen.
17:57
So I'm, I think I'm sticking to buying it in the grocery store right now.
18:01
Sylvia Lovely: You know, sometimes you wonder, you can buy stuff like the way I
18:05
do it, I'm not ever gonna grind my own.
18:07
but you can see organic like I go to Whole Foods and that
18:10
whole section of breads.
18:12
Nancy May: growing right.
18:13
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
18:14
I forget what they call some of those.
18:15
I should have written those down.
18:17
'cause I go them, I go to them and I buy them based on looks.
18:20
And some of 'em are this deep, dark, brown, nutty flavor
18:24
because they have nuts in 'em.
18:26
or the germ appears the germ of the wheat.
18:29
Appears to be more intact.
18:31
Now, I don't know the science behind that, but I suspect it's about grinding
18:35
and putting maybe some things like sunflour seeds back in and things.
18:39
'Cause there's some breads like that and I'll get those.
18:42
They're real thick and they taste really good, but wow, they
18:45
fill you up really fast too.
18:47
Then plain old Wonder Bread.
18:49
Remember Nancy, remember
18:50
Nancy May: Okay, wonderful.
18:53
Right, which, which, if you were a plumber, and even if you're
18:57
not, if you have a plumbing issue, you can actually use.
18:59
Roll the pieces of Wonderball Wonderball wonder, we're gonna call
19:03
it Wonderball Wonder Bread to plug up your pipes before you sweat them,
19:07
and they will dissolve later on.
19:09
So you don't need to worry about it.
19:10
But Wonder Bread is a plumbing tool
19:13
which makes you think about eating it.
19:15
Right?
19:16
Sylvia Lovely: and there's nothing to it.
19:17
It is squishy.
19:18
That's why you can make it up into balls.
19:20
Nancy May: Right.
19:21
it's fun to shoot across the table.
19:25
Sylvia Lovely: I thought you had a wonder ball story though.
19:27
Nancy May: actually, we have a Wonder ball story in our book.
19:29
Family Tree Food Stories,
19:30
Sylvia Lovely: where I saw it.
19:31
Yeah.
19:32
Nancy May: Anyway, Sylvia, we chatted earlier and you said flour
19:36
could tell you where I'm from.
19:38
I'm not convinced.
19:40
Feels kind of like flour's kind of neutral to everything, but especially now.
19:44
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
19:45
you know, that's a bold claim, but it's kind of historical fact, isn't it?
19:49
Nancy May: It is.
19:50
So if I looked at your grandmother's bread, I could probably tell you,
19:54
or guess where your family's from.
19:56
Sylvia Lovely: Well, you can go pretty fast to get there South,
20:00
Nancy May: Kentucky Beyond Kentucky, right?
20:02
Sylvia Lovely: either the backwoods,
20:04
Nancy May: So we did some episodes or past episodes.
20:06
Remember like the Italian show we did a few weeks back, and between 1880 and
20:11
1924, More than 20 million immigrants came through Ellis Island, they didn't
20:16
just bring trunks and their clothing and all their precious belongings, but
20:20
they brought the bread and the gravy and the soup traditions, and all of which
20:24
included flour in most of those recipes.
20:27
So Italian families tried to find the flour to make their rustic globes
20:32
of bread even richer than the bland stuff that we had here, and to make
20:37
them feel like they were back home.
20:39
Eastern European families, used a high gluten flour for rye bread.
20:42
and Kahala bread, especially during Sabbath and special holiday traditions
20:46
and the German and the Polish immigrants.
20:49
Now you were talking about seed breads.
20:50
We have a Polish restaurant by us that has this amazing seed bread.
20:54
That It feels like it weighs 20 pounds
20:56
Sylvia Lovely: It's
20:57
Nancy May: like.
20:57
Sylvia Lovely: Florida, in Brooksville.
20:59
Nancy May: it's, well, it's in Spring Hill, Florida.
21:01
It's called Cracovia, and the food there is excellent.
21:04
It's very homemade.
21:06
Although I have to, laugh.
21:07
There was a, there was a, a waitress there.
21:09
, One dinner that we had for a celebration.
21:11
Bob and I were celebrating an anniversary or birthday and she was Chinese,
21:15
so, not to discriminate Polish and Chinese, but I don't expect to have a
21:19
Chinese server at a Polish restaurant.
21:21
She was lovely though.
21:23
Her name was Mai and she was lovely.
21:25
But the Polish and the Germans were looking for more of a denser
21:28
type of rye with whole grain flours and seeds and others.
21:31
And those were, just part of the country and the regions that they brought here in
21:36
the tradition they brought to the state.
21:38
So flour is still important in family traditions and the connecting the
21:42
strength of who we are and where we came from even today, which.
21:46
I think we take for granted how those, specialty breads that are, you buy at
21:51
Whole Foods or Sprouts or other places are made and why, where they all came from.
21:55
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, sure.
21:57
So flour is kind of like an edible passport, huh?
21:59
Nancy May: I think that's a pretty cool statement.
22:01
Sylvia Lovely: Thank you.
22:02
Nancy May: speaking of edible statements, let's take a quick break.
22:17
So, Sylvia, let's take a little step further back to our country,
22:23
back to the American South, which is your territory where,
22:26
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, baby.
22:27
Nancy May: right?
22:28
Yep.
22:28
Where there's a softer.
22:30
Winter wheat that grows there and apparently it's, I
22:33
mean, you say it's beautiful.
22:34
I, the low grain, the less gluten and the results in a
22:37
tender sweet, delicious spread
22:40
Sylvia Lovely: And since you're talking Southern now, uh, move over.
22:43
Move over girl.
22:45
I'm taking over.
22:46
Nancy May: Yankee Nancy.
22:47
That's right.
22:48
You can have it.
22:48
Sylvia Lovely: Yankee, Nancy, p And now, here's where chemistry walks
22:53
into the kitchen before the mid 18 hundreds, if you want bread to rise.
22:57
What did you use?
22:59
You used yeast, right?
23:00
Which meant time.
23:01
Well, we never have enough of that, do we?
23:03
So there was, fermentation had to take place and the need to plan ahead.
23:07
A lot of the time that needed to let the bread rise can take up to several
23:12
hours, if not a full afternoon at times.
23:15
And so that's when baking powder arrives and everything speeds up.
23:19
Nancy May: Everything Okay.
23:21
Tell me more.
23:22
Sylvia Lovely: Okay.
23:23
baking powder is just chemistry waiting to happen and there's so much to baking.
23:26
That is chemistry, by the way.
23:29
And there's a base baking soda and acid like mono calcium phosphate
23:33
don't, I sound like a science guru and cornstalks to keep it dry.
23:37
And you add liquid and boom, carbon dioxide bubbles form, and takes over.
23:42
And that's your rise.
23:43
No yeast, no waiting.
23:45
Nancy May: So I'm gonna say that southern biscuits are really basically
23:49
an edible science experiment.
23:51
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
23:52
Nancy May: I'm gonna have to think about the next time Bob orders,
23:55
biscuits and gravy, because I am not a biscuits and gravy girl,
23:58
Sylvia Lovely: That is un-American, Nancy.
24:00
Alright, I'm ashamed of you.
24:01
Anyway, we'll let you get a pass.
24:03
This time you might say, you're not into it, but you're talking
24:06
about some delicious chemistry.
24:08
Eventually, manufacturers combine soft wheat flour, baking powder, and salt into
24:13
one product called self raising flour.
24:17
Yay.
24:18
Now biscuits could be on the table in 20 minutes, and that
24:20
shaped southern hospitality and dinner didn't require half a day.
24:25
and it was soft biscuits.
24:27
Those wonderful soft biscuits.
24:29
Now I like a little crusty on the outside, but I always remember, that's
24:33
my biggest memory of my grandmother was her baking biscuits she had on her apron
24:38
and she was always baking biscuits.
24:41
Do you wanna hear the most searing story that I remember of
24:44
my grandmother baking biscuits?
24:47
You probably don't wanna hear this,
24:49
and you okay?
24:50
You can cut it out if you want.
24:52
However, my grandmother accidentally baked a kitten.
24:56
The kitten had crawled into the oven, and I vivid memory as a child of watching
25:01
her weep for hours, Now there's a family story that's hard to tell.
25:06
But it's real.
25:07
Back in those days, animals, were cold they just like, they'd crawl into car
25:12
motors, they would crawl into ovens.
25:14
So check your oven if you got any cats around.
25:18
Anyway, that was my vision of my grandmother making biscuts
25:22
Nancy May: I can't imagine.
25:23
Oh my goodness.
25:24
Oh, that's so sad.
25:26
Sylvia Lovely: She was heartbroken.
25:27
Nancy May: But, so I'm, like I said, I'm never gonna think about a biscuit
25:30
quite the same again, but I, think it's a fascinating about self-rising flour.
25:36
Now I know a little bit more about it because gluten development really is
25:39
real, I, I've made biscuits and I've tried, I guess I'm just not a southern
25:45
cook, but I did try to make biscuits the first time we were down here.
25:49
my sister makes biscuits like to die for.
25:52
She's down out in Oklahoma
25:53
I don't, I don't know how she learned it, but
25:56
Sylvia Lovely: Can I ask a question about that?
25:58
Does she use self-rising flour?
25:59
Do you
26:00
Nancy May: I believe so.
26:01
It was whatever was in the kitchen when she came to
26:05
visit one day and she made them for biscuits and gravy.
26:08
She made for the aides that were taking care of mom and dad.
26:11
And they all said, when Cindy comes back, the first thing we want her
26:14
to do is make biscuits and gravy.
26:17
Sylvia Lovely: Really well.
26:18
I'm just wondering about that.
26:19
Maybe you can find out sometime, because I always stay away from self-rising flour.
26:23
I always use all purpose, but I don't know why.
26:26
Now
26:26
that I've
26:26
Nancy May: know.
26:26
Sylvia Lovely: learned about all of this, I'm
26:28
Nancy May: I wonder whether all purpose is the same as self-rising.
26:31
I never even thought about it.
26:32
Sylvia Lovely: You have to add baking soda.
26:34
I mean, and you have to add baking powder if you're gonna make biscuits.
26:38
I don't, do that all the time, but I would think, and so maybe I, you
26:41
know, I just always stayed away from self-rising, but now that I've
26:44
looked at this, maybe I shouldn't, I
26:46
Nancy May: Yeah.
26:46
Sylvia Lovely: don't know.
26:47
Nancy May: I've made a couple of biscuit sinkers.
26:48
I've tried, they're not fluffy, they're not pretty, but maybe I should have
26:52
made bagels instead of biscuits.
26:53
'cause I
26:54
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
26:54
Chewy.
26:55
Very chewy.
26:56
Mm-hmm.
26:58
Nancy May: a little bagels and locks or biscuits and locks.
27:00
Might have tried that one instead of biscuits and gravy,
27:03
Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
27:03
Nancy May: but.
27:03
Sylvia Lovely: We have many talents.
27:05
Each person has their talents, so don't worry about it.
27:08
Nancy May: But did you know that, flour also has a different kind of
27:11
history beyond an explosion, beyond going up into space, beyond being
27:15
self-rising and making biscuits?
27:17
There's another flour identity that we can't forget, and that's during
27:21
World War I and World War ii, where American families were encouraged
27:25
to observe wheat list Wednesdays.
27:28
Now say that three times fast, right?
27:30
Because the more wheat we could get to our soldiers overseas to feed them.
27:34
The better off we were as a country and grandmothers adjusted.
27:38
The recipes and the flour became a way to show their pledge of support to
27:41
the country and to be more patriotic.
27:43
Now I have to say, we did a show on, um.
27:47
on cookbooks a couple of weeks ago, and in one of the cookbooks that I found not
27:52
too long ago, I found it was fascinating.
27:54
It was from the late thirties, early forties, so somewhere around our
27:59
entry into World War ii, the recipe actually talks about flour
28:04
rationing for the war effort.
28:06
Fascinating.
28:07
Sylvia Lovely: with a lot of other things.
28:08
Nancy May: Right, so next time you're in a junk shop or an antique store,
28:12
take a look at some of the old antique cookbooks that are there, because I
28:15
think they tell a story about what's gone on in our country as well,
28:19
Sylvia Lovely: and speaking of things that travel through generations,
28:21
why don't we talk about one of your favorites, sourdough and
28:24
Nancy May: sourdough.
28:25
Absolutely.
28:26
That is one of my favorites.
28:28
Sylvia Lovely: And you know, sourdough starter is a living culture.
28:31
Wild yeast and bacteria that you feed, maintain, keep alive, and families have.
28:37
We've done shows on this, have starters that are well over a hundred
28:40
years old and have passed down like jewelry or a good cast iron pan.
28:44
Nancy May: Yeah, There are documented starters from the Gold Rush era in
28:49
Alaska that date back to the 1890s that are still alive and bubbling today.
28:54
And miners back then were so dependent on their starters as a food source
28:59
because that kept them going when they couldn't find anything else, they kept
29:03
those vials of the starter wrapped around their neck like a piece of jewelry.
29:08
So we did an episode on.
29:10
Sourdough back in July of last year, and I'll put that in the show
29:15
notes, but I can't imagine a gold miner or even a cowboy out west
29:20
with sleeping with his starter.
29:21
I think that's kind of creepy.
29:24
Sylvia Lovely: little weird, but you know it worked.
29:26
Nancy May: Right.
29:26
And it kind of reminds me of, you know, Billy Bob Thornton, the guy who's so
29:31
famous now for Landman on the show again.
29:34
Right.
29:35
I love him.
29:35
He's such a great
29:36
character.
29:37
Sylvia Lovely: He is a character.
29:38
Nancy May: Right, and his, well his wife, I think he's been married like
29:42
about six or seven times, but his former wife, Angelina Jolie, they kept vials of
29:47
their own blood around each other's neck.
29:50
So it's not necessarily a flour story, but maybe it is.
29:53
I don't know.
29:54
Sylvia Lovely: well, you know.
29:54
could start a trend.
29:56
Nancy May: I know.
29:57
Yeah.
29:57
I'm not gonna keep my flour start my flour dough starter around my neck.
30:00
Sylvia, next time you see me for sure.
30:03
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
30:03
They'll stick to the sourdough.
30:04
Don't put that other stuff in
30:06
Nancy May: I know.
30:07
I know.
30:07
But it might be a little bit more romantic to have the blood around
30:11
your neck, I guess, than flour stove.
30:14
Flower dough starter,
30:15
Sylvia Lovely: and he'll bring you down from the ledge.
30:17
Nancy May: right?
30:17
I think so.
30:18
But at least it lasted a little longer than the Hollywood relationship.
30:22
So we know today, still.
30:24
Sylvia Lovely: Oh really?
30:26
Uh, and the point is a sourdough starter is a living family
30:30
loo made from flour and water.
30:32
You couldn't get more basic than that, and you're literally tasting and eating
30:35
history will and gram a flour at a time.
30:39
Nancy May: Well, and that's what Family Tree food his stories is about.
30:41
It's a story in the history of the rich bag of flour, and depending
30:45
upon where you are in the country, whether it's a bag or a sack.
30:49
Sylvia Lovely: I have to ask you.
30:50
Is home milling realistic or is it just for bread nerds?
30:53
Nancy May: Well, you know, maybe a little bit of both.
30:55
those of us who still wanna experiment just a teeny bit in the kitchen, but
30:59
it is still growing in popularity.
31:01
The whole wheat berries you can find online in Amazon, you can buy
31:04
them by like bushels full or bags full freshly milled flour contains
31:09
a lot of oils and nutrients.
31:10
In fact, I asked Sharon, our neighbor about this, I said,
31:13
so Why do you do it and why does it, does it really taste better?
31:15
And she goes, oh, absolutely.
31:17
It's healthier for you.
31:18
It doesn't quite have the gluten that you would necessarily have
31:21
like at least a higher source of gluten and it tastes nutty.
31:25
she says there's a significant flavor difference from the organic.
31:29
Heirloom types of seeds that she uses and a more noticeably richer and, stronger
31:36
flavor in the sourdough that she's making.
31:39
So it's kind of interesting to see how this mills aren't necessarily as monstrous
31:44
and outrageous as we think they are.
31:47
Sylvia Lovely: Sit on the counter
31:48
Nancy May: Yeah, they can actually sit on the counter.
31:49
It's not, I think of the old grinding mills.
31:52
There was a, a town up north that we visited when kids in Tarrytown,
31:56
New York, and they showed the stones, the stone grinding mills.
32:00
I don't know, they must have those in, down in, the south when you were a kid.
32:03
The big round stones that they would
32:05
grind the flour and the watermills that did things.
32:09
So we've come, we've come a long way since
32:11
Sylvia Lovely: Pretty far.
32:12
Yeah.
32:13
we went from that to.
32:14
To industrialization for convenience, and now we're slowing down on purpose
32:18
or deconstructing everything again.
32:21
And you know, that's okay.
32:23
I think the beauty is there's choices.
32:26
You can do those things if you have time and, and just into it and don't have to
32:30
be, but um, I think it's kind of cool.
32:33
Yeah.
32:33
Kind of cool.
32:34
It shouldn't be feel guilted if you don't.
32:36
Nancy May: No, absolutely not.
32:37
And in fact, I think it's fun to, if you had a chance to try it,
32:41
to do it, maybe get your kids involved or grandkids and see if.
32:45
This is something that you can try making something from and if it tastes better
32:49
than Wonder Bread or something else.
32:53
so there's a real history lesson in flour, which I find fascinating,
32:58
there's a history lesson in just about everything we eat.
33:01
So I hope listeners, that when you walk down the baking aisle the
33:04
next time in your grocery store.
33:06
That you realize or just think about the history lesson that flour tells us when
33:10
you're looking at the gold medal or the, there's the there's a Bob's flour that's
33:14
out there and all of flour tradition.
33:17
Oh, white lily.
33:18
That's another one that's big
33:19
down
33:19
Sylvia Lovely: yeah, that's a Southern
33:21
Nancy May: Mm-hmm.
33:22
Yep.
33:22
Sylvia Lovely: Lilly.
33:23
Nancy May: So it's part of our heritage and culture and tradition, and
33:27
Sylvia Lovely: And.
33:27
Nancy May: different way of looking at the baking aisle.
33:29
Sylvia Lovely: So we've gone from stones to factories and now back to the kitchen.
33:33
We've almost gone full circle.
33:34
'cause flour tells us where we came from, what our soil could grow, what
33:38
our families valued, and sometimes how fast we needed dinner on the table.
33:43
Now that's reality and practical.
33:45
And that's not Neutral.
33:46
That's identity in a mixing bowl.
33:49
Nancy May: That's kind of a cool thing when you think about it, right?
33:51
And it's even more delicious and rich.
33:54
Pun intended.
33:55
So if you haven't listened to last week's episode, please go to podcast
33:59
at Family Tree Food and Stories.
34:01
There's a link in the show notes, which is at the bottom of this episode.
34:05
You'll go down and just, if you don't know how to do that, just scroll down
34:08
beyond the listening part, and there's all sorts of additional information in there.
34:12
The link to their book, the link to the other episodes, and some interesting
34:16
facts about flour that you can maybe use at your next dinner time conversation.
34:21
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, sounds good.
34:22
Nancy May: So a quiz.
34:23
I'm wondering, are you gonna give this quiz, like, where did flour come from with
34:27
your grandkids next time you see them?
34:28
Sylvia Lovely: I have, Jack, who is at that curious age.
34:31
He's 10, so he and I have fun together.
34:34
I'm might have to mention it to him.
34:35
He's also, these kids cook now,
34:37
they cooking classes.
34:38
Nancy May: I love that the kids do this because it also teaches them self survival
34:42
or, or self-sufficiency in so many ways.
34:45
But, I know too many people who don't know how to cook, maybe it's
34:48
a quiz you could put out on the tables at Azure patio and restaurant,
34:52
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
34:53
There you go.
34:54
Actually, we are looking at some of those kinds of things that would be simple, like
34:59
or sauerkraut or something like that, you
35:01
Nancy May: Right.
35:01
Where did your food come from?
35:02
Beyond the kitchen, behind
35:04
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
35:05
Nancy May: with your fabulous chef, who is
35:06
terrific, but.
35:07
Sylvia Lovely: take up chicken fingers for now though.
35:09
Nancy May: Well, you can wrap those in a flour tortilla.
35:11
So
35:12
there you go.
35:13
Sylvia Lovely: Stay hidden from you.
35:15
Nancy May: please tune in every Thursday because every meal has a
35:18
story and every story is a feast.
35:19
Remember, podcast DOT family tree, food and story.
35:22
It's time to go.
35:23
Maybe bake something.
35:24
I'm gonna go stir up some flour or maybe grind some flour.
35:27
we'll see you later and take care.
35:29
Cheers.