Emmer Wheat

EMMER WHEAT

On Saturday morning I returned to the German from Russia convention to attend one more session — Emmer Wheat: Gift from Russia. Lowell Kaul from Harvey ND presented the topic and raises some on his farm, probably more out of curiosity than profit, because as he told us he has a bin full with no place to market it. Its history fascinated me, especially after I learned they started domesticating it 10,000 years ago. Some call it the wheat of the Bible. Presently it doesn’t meet with favor for milling because the husks are tough to separate from the kernels, But never fear since scientists at NDSU and elsewhere have placed it under scrutiny. German-Russian immigrants brought the wheat with them from the old country and they ate it, hulls and all. We were told millennials keep looking for pure and unmodified food products and the pure strain Emmer holds promise for that market. Someone asked if you can make beer from it, and the tongue-in-cheek answer came back, “Emmer beer built the pyramids.” He passed a bag holding a sample of it, and I “pinched” a few kernels.