Amber waves of grain

This is a familiar mid-summer sight from my childhood in Kansas--wheat fields that stretch to the horizon. My mother's side of the family has been raising wheat for at least four generations.

Now, even wheat has become part of the local-food movement. The New York Times reports that locally-grown wheat produces unique-tasting flour.

"Midwestern wheat has been bred for uniformity and yield instead of flavor or nutrition, they say, and processed for shelf stability. But avoiding commercial flour has been a challenge.
Against a backdrop of concerns over food and transportation costs and with demand for local food growing, small wheat farmers see an opportunity."

Yet, I have a soft spot for the vast fields of "uniform" wheat made into commercial flour. If you are ever in Minneapolis, check out the flour mill museum. For decades, the Mississippi River was the source of power for flour production in the upper Midwest, as well as the shipping route to markets.

And, there are more photos of Kansas wheat fields and harvest here.

(Photo by evercool, used by permission.)