June 20, 2019 - 1:50am
Pizza Flour & Rivet Wheat
Found this heritage flour pizza blend by Lammas Fayre and it has sparked my interest for the coming community bake (well, this flour or 100% durum flour).
It has some good reviews and an interesting blend of flours - Bread flour, Spelt, Emmer, Einkorn and Rivet(?). All organic and locally grown. Worth a try I think.
Can anyone shed any light on Rivet Wheat? I've heard of it and it's often included in these heritage blends.
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I've never seen rivet wheat or its flour, but according to the few online sources I looked at - none of which appeared to have any reason to lie - rivet wheat belongs in the same general category as durum, but may have been historically somewhat more suited for northern climates than durum. Rivet wheat is/was known more in England than in other places.
That is interesting. I have only seen rivet being mentioned in context with locally grown English Heritage Wheat. It's often added to these flour mixes that were typically used historically. The fact that it falls under the category as a durum wheat makes it even more interesting.
Thanks for that David.
how tall the plant grew and the straw was valuable. Makes me think the grain was used more as a side product not necessarily eaten by people.
I got that impression from some sources too, but not necessarily from all of them. I guess it would be possible either way - a good eating wheat could just happen to have better-quality longer straw than some other types, or it could be primarily a source of straw with lower-quality seeds. And such judgments are relative, depending on what else is available in the time and place. (Not to mention that Farmer John's strain of rivet wheat could be noticeably different from Farmer George's strain.)
Mainly cultivated for its straw and used in thatched roofs however the grain is also used and I believe it is delicious. I've seen it available in a mix of flours presumably to add strength. It's on my lost to try.
Rivet is delicious! I picked up a bag when I met TFL user "lumos" on the South Bank, London back in 2013.
The loaf I baked was all Rivet except for the white flour coming from my SD starter (lievito madre).
It held up well and had the most interesting aroma somewhat akin to mixed spice or cinnamon. Here a some pics.
As a mix and you've done a lovely 100% rivet bread. You've stepped up the game Michael and set the bar high. That's lovely. Now I'm very intrigued and gotta get me some of that.
In the US, rivet is usually called poulard. Varieties include Mauri, Akmolinka, and Maparcha. Whole Grain Connection
I'm beginning to think that the term "wheat" is too generic. We have wheats with different characteristics, flavours, nutritional value and even differing chromosomes.
So many different varieties and now you tell me that a variety of wheat can have sub-varieties. Just what makes wheat, wheat?
And even wheats that come under the same category of Triticum aestivum (common wheat classification) can be different. I'm confused. Where does Rivet come into this? What am I buying at my local supermarket when it says "bread flour" and it lists the ingredient as "wheat"?
I'm confused. Fascinated but confused.
Two things make wheat be wheat, and both of them are valid in differing ways:
Are lost when we just call it wheat. People complain that we eat too much wheat and should be looking to other grains to improve our diet. Yet they've done away with all these wonderful grains which they've probably never tasted or even heard of. Wheat gets a bad rap these days but a lot of it is ignorance. I bet most of these people who avoid wheat would be clueless when they hear about the more common, of the less well known, wheats such as Emmer or Einkorn. Never mind wheats like Rivet. And yet they use what is very much a blanket term - wheat.
Well, it doesn't all get called one main name for no reason! ?
There is a certain amount of unfair generalization going on, but I think most of it isn't really about neglect of wheat varieties; to me, it mostly looks like sloppy thinking, combined with the attitude that providing an answer - ANY answer, even a wrong one - is somehow a grand service to humanity, and/or worth charging money for.
... the confusing-looking name "Poulard" (confusing because it looks as if it should have something to do with fattening the poultry) is apparently more like "Poulaine", a term in old-fashioned French that meant "the type that came from Poland".
It looks like poor John Letts, producer of Lammas Fayre flours, has got some major family problems. Without being political or off topic, I wish him well and hope that he can continue his agronomy work and production of these very interesting grains and flours.
Lance
Can Rivet flour be had in the U.S.A.? I would like to experiment with this strain.