Eat This Podcast has been going since March 2013. That’s a long time in podcast world. In that time, it has twice been nominated for a James Beard Award, although it remains a labour of love rather than a search for glory.
I am a biologist with a keen interest in food and agriculture. Eat This Podcast allows me to pursue my interests and share what I find.
I owe an immense debt of gratitude to all the guests who agree to be on the show, to the professional broadcasters who trained me, and to the software that allows me to do all this myself.
Subscribe here to get an email for each new episode. Between episodes, Eat This Newsletter brings you a selection of choice items I’ve found.
You will need to confirm your subscription, so look out for that and, maybe, check your spam folder.
Ah! That is interesting. Thanks.
Interestingly, most of the rustic “peasant” breads I’ve seen tend towards the red end.
Height width is an indicator of volume, or in baker parlance, oven spring. The red color are flat squat loaves, not usually appreciated by most consumers, while the purple loaves would be more upright and, I’m guessing, probably more open crumb.
It mentions the height/width issue in the text. I’m not a wheat growing expert so was hoping someone could illucidate for me.
Not sure what you mean when you say “height is significant”. Are you talking about the height/width ratio of the loaf, which is what this graph shows? Plant height is significantly heritable, as expected, but the paper says nothing else about it.
Actually, it isn’t. Its title is “Breeding F1 hybrid varieties of vegetables”.
Yes, this is a general article about all plant breeding.
I thought we were talking about varieties of wheat.
Chad Robertson and Dan Barber with the WSU Bread Lab have (nymag.com/intelligencer/…). I think we live in a time where so called ‘developed’ western cultures now have the luxury to turn their attention to other qualities outside of yield and production.
This is probably the nub of the findings. Interesting that height is significant. I can’t see Eikorn (probably too ‘old’ for this study). Not my field so anyone who can link these breeds to modern suppliers gets a gold star.
Ha! Well fortunately, you don’t have to do that. While science may capture the chemical/physical diffs, discerning better/worse is not measurable in that context & is out of my professional venue. My non professional side, however, agrees with @Rooftopvegplot. I like Einkorn. 🙂
PS I’ve now posted the original article here dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.food… (via @Mendeley_com)
It’s funny that none has twigged that flavour might be a breeding winner?
I’m declaring an interest here. As a nutritionist I recognise the nutritional inferiority of all white bread, even expensive sourdoughs. (From my website) saytomato.org/2019/12/04/hea…
I think we do. Modern fruit and veg are bred for “marketable yield, which is largely determined by uniformity and quality” tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…. Quality may occasionally be linked to flavour but is much more likely to be about look and keeping quality.
Very valuable. Those standardised German descriptors as used by the expert panel might be worth exploring.
Do we know that for a fact? A fact that would satisfy a statistician?
At the Grain Gathering, so relatively professional. Not trying to rank them, just trying to get them to identify flavors and find descriptors. Valuablw first steps.
Flavour is important. More apparent when you use wholemeal, and single varietal flour
True. Sadly all old varieties tend to taste better!
Certainly wholegrain makes a difference. It would be interesting to see if “white” flour forms were different. I wouldn’t rule out varieties, however. Wheat has primarily been bred for yield, milling, & baking qualities, not taste. That’s relatively unexplored.
Sorry, the statistician (and baker) in me is curious. :-)
Interesting. The descriptors, and more importantly, the quantification of those, is pretty crucial and difficult to do as we all “taste” things differently and whatever consensus we may have is fluid over time. Were these taste panels? Consumer or professional?
This was at the Grain Gathering some years ago. People had not treated single varietal wheats or other grains. We were trying to develop descriptors
I think the most important contribution modern bakers can make to bread is to go back to wholemeal production, preserving massively more nutrients than refined. My bet is that also preserves far more flavour, texture and aroma than any minor fiddling with strains.
Oh yes!
We’re there clear hedonic preferences for specific varieties?
We did a taste comparison of single varietal wheats. Clear taste diffs, and also between Red Fifes grown in three different terroirs #wheat
“What I’d really like to see is a study of modern wheats versus truly old wheats under a range of fermentation timescales.”
Yes, this would be very interesting. Also grown in multiple locations as that is likely as or more influential.