Amanda Miller
Columnist
Lettuce Eat Local

“At last the great moment arrived. A delicious odor was wafted upon the autumn breeze. Everywhere the barnyard citizens sniffed the air with delight. The Red Hen ambled in her picketty-pecketty way toward the source of all this excitement. Although she appeared to be perfectly calm, in reality she could only with difficulty restrain an impulse to dance and sing, for had she not done all the work on this wonderful bread?”

Although the fable of the Little Red Hen has a few revisions here and there — retellings I’ve seen include any combination of farm animals including cat, bull, rat, cow, pig, dog, and duck — most of the original 1874 plot remains the same. An industrious hen finds, plants, waters, cuts, and mills some wheat, inviting her neighbors to work with her along each step of the process. They refuse each time; “Oh very well, I’ll do it myself,” she says. Suddenly the enthusiasm level changes when the question is now one of eating instead of working, and though this time the little red hen is met with a chorus of yeses, she responds, “Oh no you won’t, I’ll eat it myself.” And she did. 

You’re probably quite familiar with it as well, especially considering it feels like a very Kansas-appropriate sort of story as it revolves around growing and utilizing wheat. It is both an inspirational fable, focused on the importance of hard work and personal initiative, as well as a cautionary tale warning about the consequences of not helping others. You reap what you sow, or in the case of the animals that didn’t join the hen, you don’t reap what you don’t sow. 

I’m not sure that I’d describe my manner in a “picketty-pecketty way,” but I completely empathize with the little red hen’s difficulty restraining her impulse to rejoice at “joy of joys — when the lovely brown loaves came out of the oven, they were done to perfection.” Fresh bread is one some of that kitchen magic like I talked about last week that I never tire of. 

There might be another freshly-milled layer to this story that we can glean from as well (pun intended). I do get help from my farm friends — my husband does the growing of the wheat and my kids help with the baking of the bread — so the process is quite different, but we get to take our whole wheat flour from start to finish here. Brian gets me a bucket or two of wheat berries, we store them in the basement to use all year long, and I grind them in my Vitamix into flour. I’ve always known whole wheat flour is healthier than white, retaining the integral nutrients of the whole kernel, and not surprisingly, bread baked with freshly ground flour really does taste fresher. I use some whole wheat flour in just about everything I bake, from cornbread to cake.

But up until the last few weeks I didn’t realize the impact it has to mill the wheat right before using it. “Freshly-milled flour” has been a buzzword in my area lately, popping up in conversations with quite a few different people. Statistics vary, as tends to happen with trending ideas, but it sounds like flour can start to lose some vitamins and antioxidants within even 24 hours of being milled. (Before being milled, the wheat kernels’ outer layer protects them from spoilage and keeps them stable for a long time.) 

The healthfulness of freshly milled flour isn’t a new concept, but it does seem to be getting a resurgence in interest — even some people who have gone gluten-free for years are discovering they can handle fresh flour. I’m interested and waiting to see what bakes up with continued research.

The little red hen was clearly onto something. 

Simple Half-Whole Wheat Bread

What better for W than whole wheat? The wheat we grow is a hard red variety, and quite dense when used completely, so I typically use some unbleached white flour as well (Hudson Cream!) to keep the texture a little lighter, but you can do what you want. I use my Vitamix dry grind container to mill my wheat, but you can find grain mills in many different types — maybe even a coffee grinder can work for a tiny bit in a pinch? 

Prep tips: there are several local sources for wheat berries, and some may also offer fresh flour (you can store in the freezer). 

4 cups freshly-milled whole wheat flour

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ tablespoons instant yeast

1 tablespoon salt

2 cups warm water

1 cup warm milk

½ cup local honey

4 tablespoons butter

Mix both flours, yeast, and salt in the bowl of a mixer. In a separate bowl, mix remaining ingredients until butter is melted; add to flour and knead several minutes until cohesive, adding more flour if needed — you want a little sticky but not unmanageably so. Cover and let dough rise for about an hour, then divide in half and form into two loaves. Place into buttered loaf pans and let rise again until crowning the edge of pans. Bake at 365° for 30-40 minutes.