Restoring Heritage Grains: The Culture, Biodiversity, Resilience, and Cuisine of Ancient Wheats

The book title promises a lot, but the treatment in many parts is superficial. There aren't many hard facts in the book. If you are interested in growing heritage wheat, this book will not be much help. If you are interested in using heritage wheat in cooking, this book is next to useless. And as a history of what cultivation, it isn't any better. The title speaks of heritage grains and also of ancient wheats. Are they they the same? I'd hoped for some sort of glossary of heirloom strains: their names, where they originated, where they are grown now (if at all), their uses. Now that heirloom wheat berries can be purchased, that kind of information would have been helpful.

Like this book. Great info. about the diverse grains of human history. A lot of good recipes that you can't find elsewhere. Great understanding of why ancient grains are so important to our health and the health of our soil. Interesting history....except for all of the blah blah blah glorification about the goddess cultures of the past. Eli must have forgotten that participation in those cults got the Israelite people so very punished by God. That counterpoint didn't seem to make it into this book despite how frequently the message was made clear in The Bible.

I loved this book. Very good information on heritage/ancient grains. The author gives a good overview of modern grains and how we have gotten to this current situation with mono-crop grain production. In the last chapter the author goes a little overboard on generalizations of possible early matriarchal societies, but other than that this is a great resource book.

got this book to learn more about the old true grains like einkorn. Wheat grain has been altered to provide crops that are more resistant to drought and bake more easily but has made more and more people have problems with gluten.

Excellent discussion of the history and restoration of heritage grains. However, the recipe for the no-knead einkorn bread is low on salt and hydration. So check the ratios for the recipes before you bake.

Just started this book, and love the background I'm getting. I hope to grow these grains on our farm and am looking for guidance.

CAN'T WAIT TO READ THIS BOOK !!!

"After years of research, I want to SHOUT THE TRUTH TO THE WORLD", that heritage grains have higher yields, safer for gluten allergies, easy to grow, more nutritious than our current genetic managed agrochemical -soaked modern dwarfed grains.Eli Rogosa is in love with Heritage Grains and has brought them back to us, educating us and healing us.We have been scammed by multinational corporations that current modern wheat is all we need, but ELI ROGOSA has saved us!!!Her ancient landrace wheat she grows is stunningly beautiful, its majestic in the blowing breezes, 6 feet tall, gorgeous seed kernels that it takes your breath away. I see now how it is to fall in love with a plant!To quote from 11 endorsements for the book: "Veritable treasure trove, she totally blows the lid off of this historic moment in the world of bread, she shares the wealth of information, written poetically, its a rare mix of science, history and culture, she brings the wheats into your heart, compelling inspiring book, a must read for anyone who has a garden, her profound knowledge, love and passion, valuable advise for the grower and cook, she shares the joyful story of her life's work, marvelous book that has never before been assembled under one cover"Easy to read, comfortable size book to hold (can't put it down), and you can feel the LOVE IN THE WORDS!!!and for us bakers/cooks, there are great recipes!!! Read this magnificent book, start eating these grains, and GROW IT in your gardens or farms.THANK YOU ELI!!!

Was an interesting book if you like history and want to farm ancient grains. I thought I'd also learn how to cook with these grains. Only a sm. section on cooking. Great for learning about the science of grains, their history and how they were grown!

I'm finding inspiration and practical information on every page! A very thorough review of growing heritage grains everywhere.

Excellent read

This book gives some of the history of wheat and it's development going back to Neolithic times and coming forward to the 'Green Revolution' of the 60's and the emergence of monoculture and chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Spoiler: The 'Green Revolution' of the sixties was anything, but green.It examines the traditional concept of landraces (traditional mixed variety planting) and the way in which these obviate the need for so many chemicals to protect and grow crops.There is a good chapter on the main different families of wheat along with some of their characteristics.She flags up the way in which modern wheats are bred for consistency, high speed milling and machine driven baking and not for traditional stone milling and hand baking. This she says was done at the cost of flavour and variety.I have recently started buying landrace flours and baking with them. The first thing I noticed was that it has required me to develop new skills to manage the higher proportion of stretchy gliadine to strong glutenin ratio. Otherwise blending with modern strong flour helps if you want a 'modern' loaf. The second thing that stands out is the exceptional flavour of these wheats. The flavours are outstanding.It's a complete eye opener about wheat and the flour with which we bake.Negative comments: I nearly put the book down after two chapters. Some of the research in them was sloppy. For example she wraps the Romans in with Early Mesopotamia as if they were more or less the same time and not the two thousand year gap between them. Later the facts become more solid.At times the book can be over-romantic or fanciful at others it can read a little like repetitive proselyting.It does not show you how to bake with these flours. The two recipes given were not so very good.After developing the idea of the importance of landrace wheats she still keeps Einkorn in the centre of her sites. I would not bake with einkorn, the very first known wheat from the Neolithic era. Except as an experiment. Later, real wheat, are a challenge enough for the Baker.The chapter on farming was beyond me. It appeared to be a complete, but vague, manual for farmers. It also did not include the 'Continuous cropping' organic technique which is less dependant on keeping animals to eat the forage produced in the organic rotation system.For me the book went downhill from there talking about the importance of singing to crops, folk lore turned into history and other fanciful things.However, with a bit of winnowing and bolting there is good material here which I have not found elsewhere.I hope this is useful.

If you want to know about ancient grains this book is perfect!!