I (Tara) was searching for the real West Virginia maple syrup of my youth (found it at the Capitol Market) when I ran across another bit of breakfast nostalgia: buckwheat flour.
I (Tara) was searching for the real West Virginia maple syrup of my youth (found it at the Capitol Market) when I ran across another bit of breakfast nostalgia: buckwheat flour.
Remember buckwheat cakes? In my family, we used to beg our parents to make them for breakfast. Dense, hearty, flecked with little brown specks and drenched in butter and syrup.
Now that I'm grown up and writing about food, I'm more likely to run into buckwheat disguised as Japanese soba noodles or Russian blini. I decided to buy a bag of the flour and reconnect with my inner buckwheat.
West Virginia buckwheat flour makes these fluffy, old-fashioned pancakes.
(By the way, this was one of the more entertaining ingredients I've ever Googled, thanks to the Little Rascals. Did you know that "20 /20" got duped by a Buckwheat impersonator in 1990 and ran an entire story about how he was now a down-and-out grocery bagger in Arizona? Turns out the fraudster "had made a career of claiming to be the adult Buckwheat." The real Buckwheat had been dead for 10 years, and actually worked as a film lab technician for Technicolor as an adult. The things you can find on Wikipedia.)
Buckwheat isn't wheat at all; it isn't even a grain. It's a plant related to rhubarb and sorrel. People have been cultivating it in China for 1,000 years, and it spread from there to become an important food crop in Russia and northern Europe in the Middle Ages. The Dutch brought it to the Hudson River valley in the 1600s, but Americans mostly used the seeds for livestock feed.
That changed in the 1970s. Americans got more interested in nutrition, and it turns out buckwheat is one of the most nutritious things you can eat. USDA tests show it is a more complete protein than any other cereal crop, with plenty of heart-healthy soluble fiber, vitamins and minerals. Bees make dark, strong honey from the buckwheat flowers, which is higher in antioxidants than regular honey, according to the National Honey Board.
Most buckwheat now goes into human food, according to Purdue University, and a lot of that goes into Asian soba noodles. (Try them with shredded chicken and peanut sauce.) Russian blini, the traditional vehicle for caviar, are made from buckwheat. The French turn it into buckwheat crêpes (you can buy these locally at Café Creperi in Kanawha City, loaded with anything from shrimp and feta to strawberries and chocolate).
In America, of course, it's buckwheat cakes. West Virginia has an entire festival - the 70-year-old Preston County Buckwheat Festival - built around day after day of buckwheat-cake breakfasts. The tradition started in 1938, after local farmers started raising fast-growing buckwheat in an effort to hoist themselves out of the Depression. The cakes you'll find at the festival are yeast-raised, sourdough buckwheat cakes (you can find the recipe at prestoncounty.com).
Buckwheat isn't a big crop in Preston County anymore, but there are a couple of local buckwheat fields and the festival has been getting buckwheat from them for the past couple of years, said festival spokeswoman Darla Kuhn. All of the buckwheat is ground locally, too, at the Hazelton Mill.
The two brands of buckwheat flour and pancake mix I found at Perdue Grocery at Capitol Market are locally ground. K-Mac Mills flour comes from Mount Lookout, and Jim Drennen stone-grinds "Farmer's Daughter" buckwheat flour with his wife, Brenda, at their farm in Mount Nebo - and some of the buckwheat comes from Brenda's dad's farm. It's for sale for $2 for 3 pounds at Perdue Grocery.
And it makes buckwheat cakes just like you remember.
To contact staff writers Robert J. Byers or Tara Tuckwiller, use e-mail or call 348-1236 or 348-5189.
If you go
This year's annual Preston County Buckwheat Festival is set for Sept. 25-28, with three parades, a car show, all kinds of livestock shows, road bowling and more. For information, visit buckwheatfest.com.
Buckwheat Cakes
These buckwheat cakes are airy, with a slight vanilla sweetness.
I (Tara) was searching for the real West Virginia maple syrup of my youth (found it at the Capitol Market) when I ran across another bit of breakfast nostalgia: buckwheat flour.
Remember buckwheat cakes? In my family, we used to beg our parents to make them for breakfast. Dense, hearty, flecked with little brown specks and drenched in butter and syrup.
Now that I'm grown up and writing about food, I'm more likely to run into buckwheat disguised as Japanese soba noodles or Russian blini. I decided to buy a bag of the flour and reconnect with my inner buckwheat.
(By the way, this was one of the more entertaining ingredients I've ever Googled, thanks to the Little Rascals. Did you know that "20 /20" got duped by a Buckwheat impersonator in 1990 and ran an entire story about how he was now a down-and-out grocery bagger in Arizona? Turns out the fraudster "had made a career of claiming to be the adult Buckwheat." The real Buckwheat had been dead for 10 years, and actually worked as a film lab technician for Technicolor as an adult. The things you can find on Wikipedia.)
Buckwheat isn't wheat at all; it isn't even a grain. It's a plant related to rhubarb and sorrel. People have been cultivating it in China for 1,000 years, and it spread from there to become an important food crop in Russia and northern Europe in the Middle Ages. The Dutch brought it to the Hudson River valley in the 1600s, but Americans mostly used the seeds for livestock feed.
That changed in the 1970s. Americans got more interested in nutrition, and it turns out buckwheat is one of the most nutritious things you can eat. USDA tests show it is a more complete protein than any other cereal crop, with plenty of heart-healthy soluble fiber, vitamins and minerals. Bees make dark, strong honey from the buckwheat flowers, which is higher in antioxidants than regular honey, according to the National Honey Board.
Most buckwheat now goes into human food, according to Purdue University, and a lot of that goes into Asian soba noodles. (Try them with shredded chicken and peanut sauce.) Russian blini, the traditional vehicle for caviar, are made from buckwheat. The French turn it into buckwheat crêpes (you can buy these locally at Café Creperi in Kanawha City, loaded with anything from shrimp and feta to strawberries and chocolate).
In America, of course, it's buckwheat cakes. West Virginia has an entire festival - the 70-year-old Preston County Buckwheat Festival - built around day after day of buckwheat-cake breakfasts. The tradition started in 1938, after local farmers started raising fast-growing buckwheat in an effort to hoist themselves out of the Depression. The cakes you'll find at the festival are yeast-raised, sourdough buckwheat cakes (you can find the recipe at prestoncounty.com).
Buckwheat isn't a big crop in Preston County anymore, but there are a couple of local buckwheat fields and the festival has been getting buckwheat from them for the past couple of years, said festival spokeswoman Darla Kuhn. All of the buckwheat is ground locally, too, at the Hazelton Mill.
The two brands of buckwheat flour and pancake mix I found at Perdue Grocery at Capitol Market are locally ground. K-Mac Mills flour comes from Mount Lookout, and Jim Drennen stone-grinds "Farmer's Daughter" buckwheat flour with his wife, Brenda, at their farm in Mount Nebo - and some of the buckwheat comes from Brenda's dad's farm. It's for sale for $2 for 3 pounds at Perdue Grocery.
And it makes buckwheat cakes just like you remember.
To contact staff writers Robert J. Byers or Tara Tuckwiller, use e-mail or call 348-1236 or 348-5189.
If you go
This year's annual Preston County Buckwheat Festival is set for Sept. 25-28, with three parades, a car show, all kinds of livestock shows, road bowling and more. For information, visit buckwheatfest.com.
Buckwheat Cakes
These buckwheat cakes are airy, with a slight vanilla sweetness.
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
Butter
Maple syrup
In a large bowl, combine the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla and mix with a wire whisk until combined but still slightly lumpy.
Heat a griddle over medium heat. Butter the griddle and pour 1/3 cup of batter for each pancake. Flip when the pancake is golden brown on the bottom and the top is bubbly, about 1 to 2 minutes. Cook the other side for maybe a minute - just until inside is cooked. Serve immediately with butter and syrup. Makes eight 5-inch pancakes.
Keep it clean. Comments that are obscene, sexually explicit, racist or offensive will be removed. If you wouldn’t say it to your mother, don’t post it here.
Be civil. Don’t threaten to hurt anyone. Personal attacks, insults or harassment of any kind are subject to removal.
Be truthful. Don’t lie about a situation or person.
Keep it brief. Keep your comment to one post. Redundant or multiple posts in a row aren’t allowed.
Stay on task. Stick to the topics relevant to the story and discussion.
Don’t post links to sites other than wvgazette.com.
Let us know about offensive comments. Click the “Report Abuse” button if you think a comment is against the rules.
Post a comment