Laura Kotchish does not sleep in. At her microbakery, Rising Grace, in South Roanoke. She’s been up for a couple of hours already, prepping dough, at 6 a.m.
She looks in on some country dough in the bowl of a large, commercial grade standing mixer. The dough is silky smooth and gives off an earthy and slightly sweet scent from the yeast. Kotchish is preparing to maximize gluten structure with a process called bassinage—a bread-making technique that holds back a portion of the water from the fermentation process and is added to the dough only after the initial gluten network has started to develop, allowing for higher hydration and a stronger crumb structure.
“So, when we're adding the bassinage which is the second part of the water, as well as the salt, the dough really becomes like this beautiful custard-y, yogurt-y substance. You can see it. It looks creamy. It looks luscious, velvety,” said Kotchish.
Kotchish uses a sourdough starter in her products and incorporates flour milled from organic local whole grains produced by a handful of millers around Virginia, like Heritage Virginia Mills in Nicholsville, Wade's Mill in Raphine, and Flour to the People, based in Patrick County. The most defining feature of the locally milled grains she uses is that they retain the whole grain in its entirety, the bran germ and endo sperm. Kachish is a champion of whole grain artisanal flour for its nutritional properties, much of which are stripped out of industrial white flour.
“It looks beautiful, right? White flour. But when you're stripping the grain and the germ out from your wheat kernel, you're really stripping a lot of the nutrients and the vitamins. So I guess for me, it's really a disservice to our community, the health of our community when you are making 100 per cent white bread,” she said.
In order for bakers like Kotchish to make their artisan products they need access to local grain, which can sometimes mean navigating a complex web of interconnected local producers.
Aaron Sterling is a miller who owns and operates Flour to the People.
“My job is to provoke farmers into growing grains. That was the idea, trying to find more local farmers to keep this area producing its own food. Thankfully, I've been able to do that a little bit. But I'm a miller. I'm a simple miller because people do ask if I don't grow anything. I don't have the competence or land or ability or time. But I do enjoy making local flour,” said Sterling on the porch of Riverstone Organic Farm, while carpenter bees buzzed overhead.
Sterling uses a custom-made electric milling machine that contains granite river rocks in the hopper to the mill the flour. And unlike water-powered grist mills, it’s simply a matter of turning the switch to get the machine milling grains.
While Sterling mills the flour, Ben Nommay is one source of his grain producers.
Nommay is from an industrial farming family In Indiana and says that that lived experience made him want to explore more regenerative agricultural practices.
“Biodynamic agriculture is really what I focus on, regenerative agriculture and try to grow grains that have a lot of nourishment in them so then when the miller takes it and grinds it up and then you bring it home and turn it into bread or pasta whatever it is, it actually nourishes your body fully rather than just putting a bunch of calories in your body,” he said.
The concerted efforts bakers, millers, and grain producers work in unison to create a thriving local and regional food system also speak to the importance of a less tangible ingredient: relationship building.
Lia Kelinsky-Jones is a research assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Leadership and Community Education at Virginia Tech, as well as the assistant director for research in the Virginia Tech Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation.
“We need to ensure that whether it's farmer to the farmer, or farmer to business, or farmer to nonprofit, that's looking to provide increased access to local foods, that we have those relationships across the supply chain and across the whole food system.
Kelinsky sees local and regional governments as a big key component of resiliency building in local food systems as well.
“Thinking about the intersection between the actions that our governmental officials in relationship with our producers and the other people in the food system can play, like where might they pull their levers of control. How can they help support local and regional food?” she said.
In the grand scheme of things buying bread from a local baker who uses locally sourced grains seems like a small act, but it's one that has big ripple effects throughout communities and their food systems.
