New Research Uncovers Immense Value from Old Wheat Varieties

A treasure trove of century-old wheat varieties holds the promise of restoring long-lost traits that modern agriculture has nearly forgotten. A recent article from Science.org highlights the exciting potential these heirloom grains possess, offering new pathways for breeders seeking to enhance resilience and nutritional value in contemporary wheat. This discovery is not just a nod to our agricultural past but a beacon for future sustainability.

In the early 20th century, wheat varieties were incredibly diverse, each adapted to specific regional conditions. Over the years, however, the drive for higher yields led to a narrowing of this genetic pool, often sacrificing traits like disease resistance and nutritional content. The Science.org article delves into how researchers are now turning back the clock, mining these ancient grains for the genetic diversity needed to combat modern agricultural challenges.

At Palouse Heritage, we celebrate this resurgence of interest in heritage grains, which aligns perfectly with our mission to preserve and promote these ancient varieties. Our own work with landrace grains reflects the rich agricultural legacy of the Palouse region, where traditional farming methods and heirloom seeds come together to produce crops that are both flavorful and resilient. The insights from the Science.org article underscore the importance of these efforts, highlighting how historical knowledge and modern science can synergize to benefit both farmers and consumers.

As we continue our journey at Palouse Heritage, we remain committed to honoring the wisdom of the past and resurrecting the amazing heritage grains that have helped sustained humanity for ages. The rediscovery of these century-old wheat varieties is a testament to the enduring value of agricultural biodiversity.

‘Grain Forward’ with Palouse Heritage Grains & The History of Grain Exploration

Palouse Heritage was recently featured on the increasingly popular Foraging and Farming blog. Foraging and Farming author, Robin Bacon, shares stories about agriculturists and producers doing extraordinary things for our food system. We are honored and proud to have Robin write about us in order to spread awareness of the goodness of heritage grains.

Robin’s blog post explains how Palouse Heritage has revived the legacy of grain farming that originally came to the Pacific Northwest from the old world via the Hudson’s Bay Company. She also explains how we have partnered with other members of our local and regional food system to build a resilient model the delivers amazing flavors while prioritizing environmental and human health. Please take a moment to read Robin’s blog post about Palouse Heritage here.

Plenty is Revealed, Beautiful Upon the Earth

Harvesting Heritage Grain Plots with Family “Volunteers”

We’ve had great fun here at the farm watching family members tend the heritage grain plot trials near the old farmhouse which allows us to determine which grains adapt well to our part of the country. Among the varieties we have grown are White and Red Lammas wheats that owe their enduring folk name to medieval Anglo-Saxon Lammastide (Anglo-Saxon hlaf-mas, “Loaf Mass”) of offerings traditionally held in early August when priests blessed the first ripe wheat. This annual commemoration’s antecedent included the sober rites of Celtic Luhgúhnadh, or the Celtic Sun god “Lugh’s Assembly,” which took place on August 1, when Scottish Gaelic Lùnastal (Welsh Gwl Awst—the Feast of August) was also observed.

In ancient Celtic folklore, Lugh established the festival to honor his foster mother, Talantiu, the “Great One of the Earth,” for dying from exhaustion after clearing forest for land to cultivate. By the early Middle Ages the festival came to include tribal assemblies attended by the High King, sporting contests, trade fairs, and other special events. The modern English word “earth” attests to these early peoples’ sacred regard for the land since the term is derived from Hertha, the Celtic goddess of the soil. (The word “harvest” is from Old English hærfest—“autumn,” the time described by the tenth century Menologium as “…[W]ela byð geywed fægere on foldan, or when “Plenty is revealed,  beautiful upon the earth.”)

Harvest Home in Sandomir (Poland)

Jozef Lienkowicz, Les Costumes du Peuple Polonais (Leipzig, 1841)

Columbia Heritage Collection

Early religious groups adapted these gatherings and vocabulary to the changing conditions of early medieval life and the new faith. Linguists trace the word “bread” (Nordic brøt) to Proto-Indo-European bhreu of northern Europe, a word suggesting the bubbling of leavened bread, the boiling of broth, and the brewing of beer. This northern term implies a process, while Mediterranean Latin’s word for loaf, panis (and derivatives French pain, Italian pane) emphasizes the end product. Medieval harvest festivals were commonly held throughout Europe for several days in late summer or fall depending on local traditions and after the crops had been substantially gathered. Folks of all ages but young people in particular looked forward to these spirited events as a time to don traditional costume, socialize, and engage in amusements after months of toil in the fields. Known in German as Kerbfest or Kirmes (Dutch Kermesse), these joyous times typically featured special church and market fairs with strolling minstrels, fellowship and feasting with family and friends and plenty of drink, and evening dances. The revelry is colorfully and sometimes comically depicted in such paintings as Kermis, Peasants Making Merry (1574) by Lucas van Valckenborch (1535-1597), Village Feast (c. 1600) by Marten van Cleve (c. 1527-1581), Brueghel’s The Kermesse of St. George (1628), and David Teniers the Younger’s Peasant Kermis (c. 1665).

Lucas van Valckenborch, Kermis, Peasants Making Merry (1574)

Oil on panel, 14 ½ inches

Danish National Gallery, Copenhagen

The beautifully composed painting Harvest Festival Procession (1826) by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841) presents a romanticized view of such an occasion in the German countryside with elements that combine classical and medieval motifs with the artist’s Christian worldview. A celebratory peasant throng bearing grain sheaves follow a raised eagle standard as if a Roman legion marching toward a towering statue of Ceres. Other harvesters continue to labor in a distant field beneath the ruins of a medieval castle. Schinkel’s symbolic works characteristically depict historical and topographical detail in reverence to great epochs through the ages meant to inspire contemporary social renewal.

The painting presents the view of a people who appreciate the sacred bounty of the land which is used to uplift individual spirit and elevate overall area culture.  In many Catholic parishes the church consecration day that commemorated the founding of the church or its patron saint came to added sacred elements to the festival’s old folk traditions—often condemned by clerics, but did not greatly displace them in many areas. Catholic services commemorated the transmission of supernatural power upon a place of worship and featured a lengthy liturgical Mass with Holy Communion of wine and white bread. Protestant Kirchwiehen also involved solemn ceremony but as a sacred dedication and without the metaphysical connotations.

Most Flavorful Breads, Very Beautiful Implements

I was not surprised when famed culinary host Guy Fieri of the Food Network’s hit TV show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” selected Richland’s Ethos Bakery to feature for an upcoming episode. Ethos founders Angela Kora and Scott Newell manage one of our areas most popular eateries and one trip inside their attractive space offers proof through aroma and flavor of some of the finest breads, soups, and pastries available anywhere in the region. Small wonder Angela and Scott and their talented team were accorded such an accolade. We at Palouse Heritage were especially pleased because we have long been supplying Ethos with heritage grains like Crimson Turkey wheat and Purple Egyptian barley which they mill on site for the freshest baked products possible.

Ethos Bakery & Café Culinary Treasures; Richland, Washington

I first learned about Ethos after meeting Angela at one of the annual “Grain Gatherings” sponsored by Washington State University at their Mt. Vernon Research Center north of Seattle. These convocations draw participants from across the country while others hail from Europe and Australia. It used to be that use of agrarian folksayings, recounting tales of Old and New World seasonal farm labors, and harvest work songs were the obscure domain of cultural historians and ethnologists, but burgeoning interest in such topics is evident in sustainability and food sovereignty movements here and throughout the world. At a recent Grain Gathering session, groups toured test plots of heritage White and Red Lammas wheats, Scots Bere barley, and Lincoln oats, and learned about methods and marketability of artisan breads, craft brews, and other specialty food and beverage products. Even names of event sponsors suggest Old World associations—the Bread Baking Guild, King Arthur Flour, and Wood Stone, a custom builder of stone hearth ovens.

Conference presenters shared lines by the sixteenth century agrarian poet Thomas Tusser, and showcased a “Harvest Heritage” exhibit of art based on rural themes by plein air French Impressionists, American Realists, the Russian Itinerants. American folk art was represented in the once familiar Harvest Star quilt design and nineteenth century steel engravings of field workers wielding sickles. A notable modern depiction of this ancient tool is the sculpted stone bas-relief roundel carved by an unidentified New Deal era sculptor in 1941 for the Adams County Courthouse in Ritzville, Washington. Agricultural folklorist and artist Eric Sloan considered the crescent-shaped sickle in all its variations over time to be the most beautiful implement ever crafted.

Grain Sheaf Bas-relief (1941), Adams County Courthouse; Ritzville, Washington

Simple ancient depictions of sickle-bearing field workers gave way in a blended gradualism to medieval and early modern images of scythe-swinging harvesters. The social contract that had long governed and guided enduring social systems changed little until the nineteenth century. Inventions sparked by the Industrial Revolution led to the gradual replacement of sickles and scythes with mechanical reapers. This advancement in agricultural technology greatly relieved the arduous labor of harvest fields, but also compounded pressures of urban growth throughout the great grain growing nations of Europe and the America.

The horse-powered reaper developed by American Cyrus McCormick in the 1830s featured a moveable bar of small sickle sections that effectively cut grain stalks which fell onto a platform for binding and threshing. Just like anyone can enjoy today at Ethos Bakery & Café, exceptionally flavored heritage grains like Crimson Turkey were routinely held back by families to mill at home for delicious breads and other baked goods. Community elder Donald Reich of Colfax, Washington, recently told me that he remembered his immigrant father driving all the way to the Pataha Mill near Pomeroy to get their wheat ground into flour. How convenient we can go to places like Ethos and experience what they knew to be a treasure. 

“Give Us This Day”: Daily Bread and A Home for Every Orphan

This past week brought another opportunity to travel west of the Cascades to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula as Sequim was the site of an amazing organization’s annual meeting. A Family for Every Orphan (AFFEO) has long been endorsed by our families and Palouse Heritage as one of the most consequential non-profit groups focused on strategic solutions for the global orphan crisis. AFFEO is a leader in the concept of “indigenous adoption” through which caring families in other countries are challenged and equipped to promote domestic adoption in places where orphans have traditionally been institutionalized and shunned by mainstream culture. With the cost of Americans adopting children from abroad routinely ranging from $15,000 to $25,000, the expense of indigenous adoption is often less than $1,000 with funds needed for home repair and orientation seminars. In this way, AFFEO has facilitated the placement of thousands of children since it was founded ten years ago by a dedicated group of young people, many of whom have served in America’s armed forces.

German Decorative Plate (c. 1965), Palouse Heritage Collection

AFFEO executive director Micala Siler, a graduate of West Point, is passionate about strategic interventions to place orphans in caring homes in countries where they presently reside. With approximately 10,000,000 orphans presently available for adoption worldwide, she described important AFFEO initiatives underway in eight target countries—Ukraine, Romania, Kyrgystan, Russia, Ghana, Uganda, Bangladesh, and India. As I listened to the various presentations made by Micala and other team members who had come at their own expense from various parts of the country and world, I marveled at how such a group of successful young people could gather with such a spirit of determination to make a positive difference in the lives of children they would never know.  

A Home for Every Orphan Board Meeting Table Spread (October, 2018)

In recent years I have traveled to Kiev, Moscow, Singapore, and other places in order to better understand the global orphan crisis and promote adoption. When the AFFEO board first gathered together from their far flung travels in Sequim this past week, I was pleased to see a flavorful spread of artisan breads at their host’s welcoming table. Through mutual friends many on the AFFEO team know about our work with heritage grains, and in this day of war refugees on the Horn of Africa, Mediterranean boat people, Central American immigrant caravans, and other turmoil, I sometimes wonder how children and parents in these circumstances manage to survive. Of course some don’t. While attending the subsequent AFFEO presentations, I found myself drawn to the Fourth Petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). I recall reading some time ago that the last five words of that verse are a translation of a Greek term unique not only to the Bible, but in all of ancient literature. That we might be part of others’ “day-by-day” provisioning through whatever means available to us seems to be a task of utmost nobility. For these reasons, we are honored to donate a portion of all Palouse Heritage proceeds to AFFEO’s work.

Northwest Colonial Festival — Heritage Grains under the Big Top

The Northwest’s Olympic Peninsula is famous for hosting continental America’s only rain forest which averages about 150 inches of annual precipitation. That fact might make ocean-side grain culture there a hopeless prospect, but far from it on the dry and sunny north side of the Olympic Mountains. To the contrary, the imposing mountains shelter the vicinity of Sequim, Washington, from the region’s prevailing southwesterly winds to create a rain shadow effect causing only about fifteen inches of rain to fall in that area. The peculiar semi-arid climate combined with fertile landscape create ideal conditions for raising wheat, barley, and oats. Match the geography with the patriotic dream of Dan and Jan Abbot to build a full-scale replica of Mt. Vernon as a five star bed and breakfast and you get… the spectacular George Washington Inn.

Barley Field near Sequim on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula (2018)

The Abbots have been friends of Palouse Heritage since we first met several years ago at one of the WSU Grain Gathering conferences. Dan shares our interest in health and history and wanted to learn about the crops of America’s Colonial Era in order to provide a “living history” experience to visitors to the Inn. He might not have expected them to harvest the crop, but thought that establishing test plots with actual varieties that once grew at places like Mt. Vernon and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello would be a fascinating project. And so was launched a partnership between Dan, the WSU Bread Lab in nearby Burlington, and Palouse Heritage.

British Army Reenactors approach the George Washington Inn (Mt. Vernon)

The third annual Northwest Colonial Festival was held at the Inn this past August with hundreds of visitors attending a series of special events and reenactor encampments of British regulars and American patriots. Along with demonstrations of tool making, cooking, printing, weaving, and other traditional crafts, the August sunshine brought the landrace grain plots to maturity. Many of the guests gathered under an enormous tent where longtime WSU senior agronomist Steve Lyon and I teamed up to tell about the various varieties and discuss the challenges and benefits of heritage grain production. Several once prominent early American grains like Virginia White and Red May also made their way to the Pacific Northwest by the late 1800s, and seeing bountiful stands again wave in the seaside breeze presents scenes worthy of a painting.

Three (Colonial) Musketeers

Early American Mediterranean Red Wheat Test Plot

One of the winter wheats planted last fall, Mediterranean Red, yielded terrifically and represents a remarkable chapter in the history of American agriculture. Most folks are familiar with the story of Hessian troops from Germany being used as mercenaries to fight for the British during the Revolutionary War. Many agricultural historians believe that these soldiers brought more with them to the Colonies that love of schnapps and sauerkraut. It seems that a tiny pernicious pest that came to be known as the Hessian fly likely arrived with the hay and grain brought over to provision the soldiers livestock. This insect wrought enormous havoc on cereal grains that had long been raised in North America, and local news and correspondence of George Washington and other farmers from the era is full of news about the calamity that ensured which threatened the food supply. Fortunately for the new nation, enterprising “farmer improvers” introduced Mediterranean Red which seemed to have a natural resistance to infestation. Scientists today study the remarkable genetic diversity of landrace grains that developed in locales throughout the world for millennia and continue to exhibit valued traits for hardiness, yield, and flavor.

Bridget Baker, Olympic Gold (oil on canvas, wheat field near Sequim), Palouse Heritage Collection

Hands to Harvest! “Bringing in the Sheaves” in 2018

Few words conjure up richer connotations of summertime, country life, and abundance than harvest. During the past three weeks we have commenced harvesting our Palouse Heritage grains and are pleased to report excellent quality and yield. Ever being interested in matters of origin, I decided to investigate the derivation of the word “harvest,” and learned that it is derived from German Herbst (autumn). That word in turn descends from a root shared by Latin carp- (“to gather”) and Greek karpos (“fruit”). “Harvest” in the sense of reaping grain and other crops came into vernacular use during the medieval era of Middle English.

Palouse Heritage Yellow Breton Wheat Harvest near Connell, Washington (July, 2018)

Likely due to the light color of a wheat kernel’s interior endosperm, the word “wheat” in many European languages meant “white,” as with Old English whete, Welsh gwenith, and German weizzi. The Latin term “gladiators,” hordearii, literally means “barley eaters” since they subsisted on high energy foods like barley, oatmeal, and legumes. Roman legionaries were routinely outfitted with sickles in order to procure their livelihood throughout the far flung empire, and probably used them more often that their weapons. The helical frieze on Trajan’s Column in Rome (c. 110 AD) features a dynamic group scene of soldiers in full uniform harvesting waist-high grain with prodigious heads.

These days we don’t need to rely on sickles and legionnaires to bring in the crop. Good friends like Brad Bailie of Lenwood Farms near Connell, Washington, raise bountiful crops of organic Palouse Heritage varieties like Crimson Turkey and Yellow Breton. The latter is a soft red variety native to the northern France where for generations it was used for the prized flour essential for flavorful crepes. Farther to the northeast in the vicinity of Endicott, Washington, our longtime friends Joe DeLong and Chuck Jordan are harvestings stands of Palouse Heritage Red Fife, a famous bread grain originally from Eastern Europe, Sonoran Gold wheat, and Scots Bere barley that has become one of the most sought-after craft brewing malt grains.

Although there are some variations in climate and soil across the inland Pacific Northwest, this fertile region lies within the great arc of the Columbia River’s “Big Bend” easily identified on any map. While reading through some old newspapers recently I encountered the following poem titled “The Big Bend” by Louis Todd that was published in 1900. Little else is known about Todd’s life, but his literary expressions here make it clear he greatly appreciated this land of harvest time “golden splendor.”

No other river to the ocean

   Will a tale like thine unfold,

Of the wealth seen in thy travels;

   Of the wealth thy borders hold;

For thy thoughts the grandeur bear,

   And thy breath the sweetness breathes,

Of the boundless fields and forests,

   Of the richly laden trees.

And there grows within thy roaring

   All the fairest of the vine;

Luscious fruits in clusters hanging

   From the north and southern clime.

Great fields of wheat in golden splendor,

   Waving like a mighty sea,

Holding safe their precious treasure

   ’Till the grain shall ripened be.

Where nature works with freest hand,

   Builds her greatest work of art,

Will the feeble life of man

   There most smoothly play its part.

Oh, leave the dreary course you travel,

   Spurn the rocky path you go,

Join again your life with Nature,

   Where the fragrant flowers grow.

Palouse Heritage Red Fife Wheat Harvest (July, 2018)