Anson Mills: Heirloom Grains Like Mama Used to Grow
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 01.19.08
Now we’re all about tasty organic baked goods like Liz Lovely’s cookies, but sometimes nothing beats creating your own. But say you are creating your own ginger cookies, for example, where should you get your flour from? Assuming there’s not a good source of locally milled flour nearby, our American readers could do a lot worse than ordering their flours and grains from Anson Mills, purveyors of the finest heirloom varieties of grits, cornmeal, rice, flour, oatmeal, buckwheat and farro. The concept and values behind the company are certainly right up TreeHugger’s alley. Started back in 1998 by Glenn Roberts, Anson Mills was always intended to be a catalyst for recreating the ingredients and recipes of the past that were in danger of disappearing for ever:
The cuisine was gone, the ingredients that inspired it no longer available. You might ask why anyone cared. Glenn cared for a lot of reasons. He cared because the dishes his mother described during her girlhood in Aiken, South Carolina could no longer be prepared. He cared because each time he was asked to create a period dinner for an historic project the ingredients weren't around. He cared because local growers lacked the experience to grow old varieties. He cared because he knew this food had been exceptional.
::Anson Mills::via site visit::
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I've never thought photographs of flour and rice could be artistic, but wow the design of this page is fantastic. Natural light photography and all.
If you order your staples over the internet and deliver them in large enough quantities (10-20 lbs at a time, which is a big supply) it may approach the shop locally optimum, especially if you get UPS coming to your place of business anyway. After all, I don't think anyone does much local milling in Manhattan.
They do make some amazing grits!
After looking at their website, I want to find some of their oats next time I am home ... they also look amazing.
This is a really great idea. Freshly milled grains used to be the norm and now are practically an extinct item. So important to health as well.