Last Saturday it took nine people about six hours to reap one tenth of an acre of wheat on Alprilla Farm in Essex. Scythes in hand, we cut the wheat and tied armfuls into sheafs, just like Millet’s “Reapers.” The only thing we didn’t do was bring our taxed portion to Townhall, Noah Kellerman, who had farmed the wheat, pointed out. Also, these young reapers had all been promised a pool party after their labors, not exactly Millet’s farmer’s end of day.
Kellerman, 22, and Tucker Smith, 21, farm the 2.5 acres on Rt. 133 in Essex where Noah’s grandfather had once raised beef cattle. Although it took only a few minutes bent over in the baking morning sun to start wondering how any civilization ever grew enough wheat for even one bakery to keep in business, Kellerman and Smith are part of a resurgence in growing local grains.
Kellerman had all kinds of reasons for growing his own wheat. First, he said it’s really hard farming, and he needed more than salad for dinner; growing his own wheat for the bread on his table seemed like a good idea. Also, growing food that makes a rounded diet means diversification of crops, also a good idea. And then, knowing how your food is produced is always a good idea.
Kellerman told me that an 1830 agricultural record of the North Shore accounted for only barley and rye being grown in the region. (An aside: salt grasses carry ergot fungi, which easily contaminates rye, and imitates LSD when consumed by humans. It affects wheat, too, but not as severely. This may be just one reason why Cape Ann isn’t know for its amber waves of grain.)
The language behind wheat growing deserves its own word museum. For each of the nine machines it takes to produce wheat with mechanization, there are three poetic words to describe the details, starting with “sheaf.”
“Wheat threshes free,” Kellerman told me, meaning when the stalk is shaken and rubbed, the grain falls off and loosens the “chaff” – or husk - at the same time. This is in contrast to other grains which require that extra husk-freeing step, which, by the way, is another beautiful word: winnow. Again, as depicted in Millet’s painting “The Winnower,” before machines, winnowing was most often done by tossing the grains from a basket gently up into a light breeze, which would blow away the papery chaff.
Lest you get nostalgic for the romance of that Millet painting, I’ll present Kellerman’s numbers. (He’s a farmer who loves numbers.) Remember, it took nine people six hours to harvest one tenth of an acre of wheat, which will finally account for approximately 150 pounds of grain. There are about 1500 calories in a pound of wheat, not enough to sustain anyone for very long. And yet it took a lot of serious labor to produce those calories. What quantities of labor and land must it have taken to provide enough calories to sustain even a large village in the years before mechanization?
Even growing wheat with contemporary methods requires involved infrastructure; As mentioned, it takes nine different machines to take wheat from seed to flour bin: a tractor, a plow, a grain drill, a combine, grain wagons, an elevator to the silo, a grain dryer, a seed cleaner, and a mill. Kellerman sensibly has no interest in recreating the wheel, or the labor behind Millet’s reapers, and plans next year on purchasing a small combine which will both reap and thresh the wheat. The whole ratio of labor to product is the kind of thing one considers – I promise you, I was there – after even a half an hour bent in the hot sun.
Here’s more business and science behind Kellerman’s and Smith’s wheat growing venture. This wheat was planted in the fall in a field which needed a rest. The previous season it had been growing vegetables for the CSA. By March the wheat had grown to four to five inches, at which point the farmers broadcast clover seed. The wheat holds the clover seeds in place and protects from erosion, allowing the young clover, which will then replace nitrogen to the soil, to get started. The kindly wheat is therefore both a cash crop and a nurse crop, allowing these farmers to produce a return – the wheat – from a plot of land supposedly taking a break.
This is all lovely except, I was in that field taking handfuls of wheat and chopping them at the base with my scythe. While the others went into the heavily planted wheat field, a young man named Ryan and I felt obliged to sort out the edges where the wheat was truly integrated with the clover. It was a serious pain in the neck, tedious and time consuming, sorting wheat from clover. Kellerman says honestly this couldn’t be done at all with a combine, because the soft, verdant clover bungs up the machine. Alas, well-produced, organic wheat is ridiculously labor intensive and time consuming. After the experience on Saturday – albeit enriching and pleasant with this earnest young crew - I don’t know why bread doesn’t cost $35 a loaf.
Wheat berries are the unprocessed berries that I saw fall from the sheafs when we “threshed” and “winnowed” them just by rubbing the grains between our hands. There are many variations of wheat berry salads. Some recipes ask that the berries to be pre-soaked, some don’t. Everything from grilled tofu to apples to walnuts can be added, but this recipe from Gourmet Magazine is an excellent, simple combination of flavors that retains the nutty flavor of the berries.
Wheat Berry Salad from Gourmet Magazine
2 cups wheat berries
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
three quarters teaspoon salt
one half teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil.
1 small red onion, halved lengthwise, then sliced thinly lengthwise
one half cup chopped fresh dill
Cook wheat berries in a 4 quart pot of boiling water (not salted), uncovered until tender, one to one and a quarter hours. Drain in a large sieve and rinse under cold water to cool, then drain well. Whisk together vinegar, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Add oil in a slow stream, whisking until combined. Add wheat berries, onion, and dill and stir to coat well.
