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The New Bread Basket: How the New Crop of Grain Growers, Plant Breeders, Millers, Maltsters, Bakers, Brewers, and Local Food Activists Are Redefining Our Daily Loaf
For more than 10,000 years, grains have been the staples of Western civilization. The stored energy of grain allowed our ancestors to shift from nomadic hunting and gathering and build settled communities―even great cities. Though most bread now comes from factory bakeries, the symbolism of wheat and bread―amber waves of grain, the staff of life―still carries great meaning.
Today, bread and beer are once again building community as a new band of farmers, bakers, millers, and maltsters work to reinvent local grain systems. The New Bread Basket tells their stories and reveals the village that stands behind every loaf and every pint.
While eating locally grown crops like heirloom tomatoes has become almost a cliché, grains are late in arriving to local tables, because growing them requires a lot of land and equipment. Milling, malting, and marketing take both tools and cooperation. The New Bread Basket reveals the bones of that cooperation, profiling the seed breeders, agronomists, and grassroots food activists who are collaborating with farmers, millers, bakers, and other local producers.
Take Andrea and Christian Stanley, a couple who taught themselves the craft of malting and opened the first malthouse in New England in one hundred years. Outside Ithaca, New York, bread from a farmer-miller-baker partnership has become an emblem in the battle against shale gas fracking. And in the Pacific Northwest, people are shifting grain markets from commodity exports to regional feed, food, and alcohol production. Such pioneering grain projects give consumers an alternative to industrial bread and beer, and return their production to a scale that respects people, local communities, and the health of the environment.
Many Americans today avoid gluten and carbohydrates. Yet, our shared history with grains―from the village baker to Wonder Bread―suggests that modern changes in farming and processing could be the real reason that grains have become suspect in popular nutrition. The people profiled in The New Bread Basket are returning to traditional methods like long sourdough fermentations that might address the dietary ills attributed to wheat. Their work and lives make our foundational crops visible, and vital, again.
Today, bread and beer are once again building community as a new band of farmers, bakers, millers, and maltsters work to reinvent local grain systems. The New Bread Basket tells their stories and reveals the village that stands behind every loaf and every pint.
While eating locally grown crops like heirloom tomatoes has become almost a cliché, grains are late in arriving to local tables, because growing them requires a lot of land and equipment. Milling, malting, and marketing take both tools and cooperation. The New Bread Basket reveals the bones of that cooperation, profiling the seed breeders, agronomists, and grassroots food activists who are collaborating with farmers, millers, bakers, and other local producers.
Take Andrea and Christian Stanley, a couple who taught themselves the craft of malting and opened the first malthouse in New England in one hundred years. Outside Ithaca, New York, bread from a farmer-miller-baker partnership has become an emblem in the battle against shale gas fracking. And in the Pacific Northwest, people are shifting grain markets from commodity exports to regional feed, food, and alcohol production. Such pioneering grain projects give consumers an alternative to industrial bread and beer, and return their production to a scale that respects people, local communities, and the health of the environment.
Many Americans today avoid gluten and carbohydrates. Yet, our shared history with grains―from the village baker to Wonder Bread―suggests that modern changes in farming and processing could be the real reason that grains have become suspect in popular nutrition. The people profiled in The New Bread Basket are returning to traditional methods like long sourdough fermentations that might address the dietary ills attributed to wheat. Their work and lives make our foundational crops visible, and vital, again.
246 pages, Paperback
First published June 26, 2015
14 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 1, 2016
Some chapters were great, lots of science, lots of history, lots of reasons for how we got here and how we're going there.
But I felt like in between that there were WAY too many name drops and too many underground labs/startups/research to keep track or even after chapter 8 continue to keep them straight or think they were as important as the ones listed up front, which was a shame because I really wanted to care about the last two chapters on malting and brewing beer. But for me, that is more interesting than bread, since that type of bread movement isn't within my radius of the Northeast.
But I felt like in between that there were WAY too many name drops and too many underground labs/startups/research to keep track or even after chapter 8 continue to keep them straight or think they were as important as the ones listed up front, which was a shame because I really wanted to care about the last two chapters on malting and brewing beer. But for me, that is more interesting than bread, since that type of bread movement isn't within my radius of the Northeast.
August 29, 2017
As an introvert, this book felt like a loud and noisy party. Where I wanted information on growing and processing grains, including what these "new crop" of people were doing in their field, Amy Halloran gave me descriptions of what these people looked like, who they knew, how they knew them. There is just too much chatter in this book and the facts are spread out too randomly. I do want to know why NY State was the bread basket of the Revolution and why that changed, and how freshly milled grain differs for the commercial product our markets are flooded with, but I really don't care about all these names, all these personalities. I want to know about their passion.
March 5, 2024
Moved very much by the journey and the attempt to reveal the relationships that have been invisiblized at scale.
I feel like I was hungry for a more critical engagement with settler colonialism, histories of enslavement, and so forth that are also a big part of the story of why many of us are disconnected from the earth.
I feel like I was hungry for a more critical engagement with settler colonialism, histories of enslavement, and so forth that are also a big part of the story of why many of us are disconnected from the earth.
July 24, 2023
A lovely love letter to local food systems and baking. Makes me want to go bake!
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September 30, 2023Also the author of the pamphlet "The Pancake Papers" which is now my go to pancake recipe!;
August 5, 2019
I am passionate about building local sustainable food systems and local sustainable economies. I also love baking bread and home brewing (I'm also interested in distilling, but have yet to dive in), so this book is right up my ally. Even more exciting is that grain farmers, millers, and bakers from my area (I live in the Finger Lakes) are featured prominently.
Throughout the book, Hollaron's goal is to demonstrate the ways that local networks and connections between farmers, millers, and bakers (or brewers, distillers, etc.) have worked together to provide locally grown, harvested, and processed food. In this book, food (especially bread) is a metaphor for the social systems that we as humans build for our survival and a lens for examining social institutions which have developed as a result of collaboration and cooperation.
Of course, these systems are part of a growing trend over the last few decades to take back food systems from corporate conglomerates which are focused mostly on profit and the bottom line, often at the expense of the planet and its natural resources on which we survive. In the examples Halloran highlights, she illustrates how these systems are bringing the human element and social relations which develop locally back into food production--relations which have been eliminated by retail and industrial models that separate farmer from baker from consumer. She writes, "Industrialized farming, mechanized baking, and the commodity system render these people and processes invisible. Breaking out of this system makes the processes transparent, and allows people to see each other and their respective work. Bread in a see-through bag on [her] counter says nothing of our collective social investment in grains and one another. Sliced bread hides the questions people have asked of seeds, soil, scythes, and mills. [She wants] to see the interrogations. [She wants] to know what answers best serve our personal health, and the health of the environment" (22).
Halloran highlights how these local and regional systems are not simply means for the production of sustenance for survival, but also mechanisms for political activities and messaging. She describes how bread became a way for people to connect at an international level in the fight against fracking: "[Wide Awake Bakery in Trumansburg] has sent loaves to anti-fracking rallies, beautifully echoing a Bulgarian bread march that, along with other protests, led to Bulgaria becoming the first country in the world to ban shale gas extraction. New York State was not so easily convinced to shut out the fossil fuel companies. 'Break Bread, Not Shale!' people chanted at the state capital and elsewhere. For two years, environmental activist and poet Sandra Steingraber held loaves in the air as she eloquently listed reasons why hydrofracking shale to extract natural gas was dangerous" (12).
Since Hollaron's approach for this book is to examine a multitude of examples for how farmers, millers, and producers (bakers, brewers, etc.) have come together to provide for each others' needs, it can often feel repetitive. Although each circumstance is, of course, unique, the general idea is similar-a commitment to collaboration to rebuild relationships and food systems for nutritious and tasty sustenance, economic viability and stability, and overall social strength at the local and regional level.
This book also cites similar books in these areas and thereby opens onto additional opportunities for learning. Those interested in local food systems and economic viability for a social strong and enduring community, not to mention people who love to eat and drink tasty, quality food and beverages, will "devour" this book, as I have.
Throughout the book, Hollaron's goal is to demonstrate the ways that local networks and connections between farmers, millers, and bakers (or brewers, distillers, etc.) have worked together to provide locally grown, harvested, and processed food. In this book, food (especially bread) is a metaphor for the social systems that we as humans build for our survival and a lens for examining social institutions which have developed as a result of collaboration and cooperation.
Of course, these systems are part of a growing trend over the last few decades to take back food systems from corporate conglomerates which are focused mostly on profit and the bottom line, often at the expense of the planet and its natural resources on which we survive. In the examples Halloran highlights, she illustrates how these systems are bringing the human element and social relations which develop locally back into food production--relations which have been eliminated by retail and industrial models that separate farmer from baker from consumer. She writes, "Industrialized farming, mechanized baking, and the commodity system render these people and processes invisible. Breaking out of this system makes the processes transparent, and allows people to see each other and their respective work. Bread in a see-through bag on [her] counter says nothing of our collective social investment in grains and one another. Sliced bread hides the questions people have asked of seeds, soil, scythes, and mills. [She wants] to see the interrogations. [She wants] to know what answers best serve our personal health, and the health of the environment" (22).
Halloran highlights how these local and regional systems are not simply means for the production of sustenance for survival, but also mechanisms for political activities and messaging. She describes how bread became a way for people to connect at an international level in the fight against fracking: "[Wide Awake Bakery in Trumansburg] has sent loaves to anti-fracking rallies, beautifully echoing a Bulgarian bread march that, along with other protests, led to Bulgaria becoming the first country in the world to ban shale gas extraction. New York State was not so easily convinced to shut out the fossil fuel companies. 'Break Bread, Not Shale!' people chanted at the state capital and elsewhere. For two years, environmental activist and poet Sandra Steingraber held loaves in the air as she eloquently listed reasons why hydrofracking shale to extract natural gas was dangerous" (12).
Since Hollaron's approach for this book is to examine a multitude of examples for how farmers, millers, and producers (bakers, brewers, etc.) have come together to provide for each others' needs, it can often feel repetitive. Although each circumstance is, of course, unique, the general idea is similar-a commitment to collaboration to rebuild relationships and food systems for nutritious and tasty sustenance, economic viability and stability, and overall social strength at the local and regional level.
This book also cites similar books in these areas and thereby opens onto additional opportunities for learning. Those interested in local food systems and economic viability for a social strong and enduring community, not to mention people who love to eat and drink tasty, quality food and beverages, will "devour" this book, as I have.
May 19, 2016
The local food movement has largely grown around access to fresh foods, with little attention paid to foods produced predominately in the commodity sector. Amy Halloran sets out to look at the revival of local grains through a personal journey. She interviews farmers, millers, bakers, maltsters, brewers, activists, chefs, and researchers involved in the reinvention of the grain sector in Northeastern North America. Full disclosure: I am one of the subjects in the book and provided some source material to her at various times. It is a good compliment to Jack Lazor's book, but far from the final word. At times I find it a little Pollyannish, but she does a good job of capturing my curmudgeonly-ness as a counterpoint.
November 30, 2015
Well written and researched, The New Bread Basket offers the reader a balanced but passionate look into the new world of local grain economies: their potential, but also the obstacles that stand in the way.
I hope the book will inspire readers and bring that future yet another step closer.
I hope the book will inspire readers and bring that future yet another step closer.
October 16, 2015
Very good, informative. But also "first world problems." Too many others are just worried about getting their"daily bread," not the level of authenticity of their artisanal loaf.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews