[Music]
[Applause]
five years ago a box showed up on the
doorstep of my bakery
this was sent to me by a fellow Miller
and Baker from Asheville North Carolina
inside this box there were three bags
the first met paid a variety called
friends of a brute seer I opened up this
bag and I saw this flower that had this
deep purplish color and this totally
funky crazy earthy grassy aroma the
second bag contained a variety of
heirloom corn called bloody butcher now
the name is indicative of its color it
says deep magenta and whenever I breathe
it in I was overwhelmed by this buttery
creamy rich smell the third bag
contained a variety of hard red winter
wheat just wheat flour but this bag
basically altered the trajectory of my
work of the last fourteen years it was
crazy to me to think that a single bag
of flour small like this big could do
that but whenever I would think about
flour in the past I would think of
nothing maybe dust powdery but in my
mind it was mostly just this innocuous
substance that I considered a blank
slate this bag however of wheat flour
when I opened it it was beautiful rich
yellow and I was overwhelmed by this
complex nuttiness and as I thought about
it I realized that it smelled like
something else
it smelled like Peas okay Peas but then
I remembered that farmers use field peas
as a nitrogen fixer as part of their
crop rotation to build soil health
essentially what this was and what was
happening is I was being trained
supported to the field I was
experiencing where this grain this
flower had been planted this was terroir
I knew this in the past through wine or
cheese but until this day not flower so
the reason for this is that the wheat
berry has three parts the brand the
endosperm and the germ the brand is the
exterior that’s where the fiber is
stored the endosperm is the starchy
interior and the germ is the nutritional
epicenter of the wheat berry that is
where all of the vitamins and minerals
exist the majority of the flour that is
consumed in our modern diets is
processed on a roller mill the way this
works is it goes through this big
machine and the brand and the germ is
removed leaving a starchy white powder
that is basically suited for existing on
our commodity markets and stable as
stable substance for our to sit on our
kitchens pantry shelves and our grocery
stores for indefinite amounts of time
now the flour in this box had been
ground on a stone mill the way this
works there’s two giant stones it takes
the wheat berry and it compresses the
entire wheat berry together crushing it
keeping all three parts of the week
intact that grain intact and the flavor
and nutrition present in our flour see
when you look back in history and you
think about it every community had a
farm a miller a baker and this helped
form the fabric it helped kind of be the
center of the local food system and what
it did is it allowed this food to be
consumed fresh this is a staple and
freshness was imperative wheat is a seat
if you put it in the ground
and you give it water it’s gonna grow it
contains an inherent vitality and as
soon as you crack that seed open and you
expose it to air
that vitality is diminished another way
I like to think of this is that roller
milling was designed for exclude or for
separation where stone milling was
designed for inclusion this box
that had been sent to me by my friend it
was the flower the grain had been grown
in Asheville hadn’t been then milled by
my friend he baked it first bred and
distributed in his community through
this simple gesture I was able to
connect the dots and I realized that I
needed to be using fresh flour like this
and I want to be able to do it here in
Vermont so in order to do this I needed
a Mel way we went about it is we ended
up we ultimately designed and built our
own mill entirely long other story but
what this allows us to do is it allows
me to mill 100% of my flour fresh every
day what I’m trying to do is basically I
wanted to do like pull a fast one on my
customers I wanted them to go to the
store I wanted them to buy the loaf of
bread put it on their cutting board see
the low same loaf of bread that they’d
been buying for over a decade but it’s
when they taste it when they eat it that
they were experiencing that taste of
place and being given the opportunity to
make connect those dots like I was the
other thing that this allowed me to do
this project allowed me to do was buy
all of my grain directly from the farmer
basically what I wanted to do was cut
out the middleman I believe that no one
works harder than the people who grow
our food no one does a more important
job than that and they need to be
properly compensated for that so I got
really lucky and one of the biggest
obstacles that I found once I establish
that this is what I wanted to be doing
was that I needed to be sourcing this
grain here in Vermont and it was
difficult because Vermont in New England
is no longer the breadbasket it once was
I got really lucky though and one day a
friend of mine handed me a piece of
paper and on that piece of paper was a
phone number and the name of Nate and
Jesse Rodgers and I did something
completely out of my nature and I
basically cold called him and I spent
over an hour on the phone with him and
we talked about a lot of things but the
main thing we talked about was that I
had a bakery and a mill but no local
grain and he had a farm and local grain
but no bakery and it
Time know Mel so that was over five
years ago and through that conversation
a relationship was formed and since then
we have worked together to build our
local businesses sustainably to show
that we can focus this around grain and
by doing this we are slowly replacing
the building blocks and reforming our
local grain economy what’s exciting to
me is every year I’d see more and more
farmers adding local grains into their
fields and as part of their crop
rotation I’m seeing more producers and
Baker’s putting fresh milled local
organic grains healthy grains into their
products and I’m seeing this also happen
not just here in Vermont but I’m seeing
it happen across the country and around
the world and an astonishing rate see I
believe that by looking to the past
we’re finding the future of bread wheat
and flour is the last frontier of the
local food movement and wheat and grain
has always been one of the most widely
consumed foods it always has been and
always will be one of the most widely
consumed foods on the planet I’m asking
and I’m working towards people to look
at these foods this staple food with the
same scrutiny that they do there other
fresh foods your meat your diary your
vegetables I believe that by doing so we
will have healthier diets healthier
diets make healthier bodies write
healthier bodies equal healthier lines
and right now more than ever we need
healthy reminds to build healthier communities
[Applause]
five years ago a box showed up on the
doorstep of my bakery
this was sent to me by a fellow Miller
and Baker from Asheville North Carolina
inside this box there were three bags
the first met paid a variety called
friends of a brute seer I opened up this
bag and I saw this flower that had this
deep purplish color and this totally
funky crazy earthy grassy aroma the
second bag contained a variety of
heirloom corn called bloody butcher now
the name is indicative of its color it
says deep magenta and whenever I breathe
it in I was overwhelmed by this buttery
creamy rich smell the third bag
contained a variety of hard red winter
wheat just wheat flour but this bag
basically altered the trajectory of my
work of the last fourteen years it was
crazy to me to think that a single bag
of flour small like this big could do
that but whenever I would think about
flour in the past I would think of
nothing maybe dust powdery but in my
mind it was mostly just this innocuous
substance that I considered a blank
slate this bag however of wheat flour
when I opened it it was beautiful rich
yellow and I was overwhelmed by this
complex nuttiness and as I thought about
it I realized that it smelled like
something else
it smelled like Peas okay Peas but then
I remembered that farmers use field peas
as a nitrogen fixer as part of their
crop rotation to build soil health
essentially what this was and what was
happening is I was being trained
supported to the field I was
experiencing where this grain this
flower had been planted this was terroir
I knew this in the past through wine or
cheese but until this day not flower so
the reason for this is that the wheat
berry has three parts the brand the
endosperm and the germ the brand is the
exterior that’s where the fiber is
stored the endosperm is the starchy
interior and the germ is the nutritional
epicenter of the wheat berry that is
where all of the vitamins and minerals
exist the majority of the flour that is
consumed in our modern diets is
processed on a roller mill the way this
works is it goes through this big
machine and the brand and the germ is
removed leaving a starchy white powder
that is basically suited for existing on
our commodity markets and stable as
stable substance for our to sit on our
kitchens pantry shelves and our grocery
stores for indefinite amounts of time
now the flour in this box had been
ground on a stone mill the way this
works there’s two giant stones it takes
the wheat berry and it compresses the
entire wheat berry together crushing it
keeping all three parts of the week
intact that grain intact and the flavor
and nutrition present in our flour see
when you look back in history and you
think about it every community had a
farm a miller a baker and this helped
form the fabric it helped kind of be the
center of the local food system and what
it did is it allowed this food to be
consumed fresh this is a staple and
freshness was imperative wheat is a seat
if you put it in the ground
and you give it water it’s gonna grow it
contains an inherent vitality and as
soon as you crack that seed open and you
expose it to air
that vitality is diminished another way
I like to think of this is that roller
milling was designed for exclude or for
separation where stone milling was
designed for inclusion this box
that had been sent to me by my friend it
was the flower the grain had been grown
in Asheville hadn’t been then milled by
my friend he baked it first bred and
distributed in his community through
this simple gesture I was able to
connect the dots and I realized that I
needed to be using fresh flour like this
and I want to be able to do it here in
Vermont so in order to do this I needed
a Mel way we went about it is we ended
up we ultimately designed and built our
own mill entirely long other story but
what this allows us to do is it allows
me to mill 100% of my flour fresh every
day what I’m trying to do is basically I
wanted to do like pull a fast one on my
customers I wanted them to go to the
store I wanted them to buy the loaf of
bread put it on their cutting board see
the low same loaf of bread that they’d
been buying for over a decade but it’s
when they taste it when they eat it that
they were experiencing that taste of
place and being given the opportunity to
make connect those dots like I was the
other thing that this allowed me to do
this project allowed me to do was buy
all of my grain directly from the farmer
basically what I wanted to do was cut
out the middleman I believe that no one
works harder than the people who grow
our food no one does a more important
job than that and they need to be
properly compensated for that so I got
really lucky and one of the biggest
obstacles that I found once I establish
that this is what I wanted to be doing
was that I needed to be sourcing this
grain here in Vermont and it was
difficult because Vermont in New England
is no longer the breadbasket it once was
I got really lucky though and one day a
friend of mine handed me a piece of
paper and on that piece of paper was a
phone number and the name of Nate and
Jesse Rodgers and I did something
completely out of my nature and I
basically cold called him and I spent
over an hour on the phone with him and
we talked about a lot of things but the
main thing we talked about was that I
had a bakery and a mill but no local
grain and he had a farm and local grain
but no bakery and it
Time know Mel so that was over five
years ago and through that conversation
a relationship was formed and since then
we have worked together to build our
local businesses sustainably to show
that we can focus this around grain and
by doing this we are slowly replacing
the building blocks and reforming our
local grain economy what’s exciting to
me is every year I’d see more and more
farmers adding local grains into their
fields and as part of their crop
rotation I’m seeing more producers and
Baker’s putting fresh milled local
organic grains healthy grains into their
products and I’m seeing this also happen
not just here in Vermont but I’m seeing
it happen across the country and around
the world and an astonishing rate see I
believe that by looking to the past
we’re finding the future of bread wheat
and flour is the last frontier of the
local food movement and wheat and grain
has always been one of the most widely
consumed foods it always has been and
always will be one of the most widely
consumed foods on the planet I’m asking
and I’m working towards people to look
at these foods this staple food with the
same scrutiny that they do there other
fresh foods your meat your diary your
vegetables I believe that by doing so we
will have healthier diets healthier
diets make healthier bodies write
healthier bodies equal healthier lines
and right now more than ever we need
healthy reminds to build healthier communities
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