The Wonderful World of Flour

Over lunch the other day, my friend August was telling me about a recipe that she makes using acorn flour, a flour that she and her mom make from scratch.  Acorn flour?  I had never heard of such a thing before or at least never seen it available in stores, but it did get me thinking about flour.

With so many rampant allergies these days and gluten intolerances, I had noticed that stores seem to carry a much wider variety of flours that I ever remembered on the shelves when I was growing up.

Of course this got my brain churning and wondering what the what was with flour.  I started to do a little looking into it and started having flashbacks to when I was prepping for my post about curry.  There is a LOT more going on in the world of flour than I realized or would want to cram into a single post, so I was thinking that over the next couple of weeks I want to try out some of these flours that I've not used before and see what fun stuff I can come up with to share with you.

Just to get you all prepped for the fun floury times ahead, here's a skimming the surface look at flour.

FLOUR

Flour, at its simplest, is defined as a powder made by grinding cereal grains, seeds, or roots.

Evidence has been found indicating that since around 6,000 BC, seeds were crushed between millstones to make flour.

Throughout history, grinding flour has been achieved with hand power (mortar and pestle), with animal power (horse mill), by water (water mill), wind (wind mill) and electricity (grinders).

The Romans were the first to grind seeds using cone mills.

Starting in the 1930-40s, flours were enriched with iron, niacin, thiamine and riboflavin.

Wheat flours are most common in Europe, North America, Middle East, Indian and North Africa while corn flour (aka maize flour) is more widely used in Mesoamerican cuisine and through the Americas.  Rye flour is common in much of central Europe and rice flour is more often found used in Asian cuisine.

Types of Flour Preparation

*Unbleached flour – natural state and has not been bleached so is not “white”
*Refined flour – has had the wheat germ and bran removed
*Bleached flour – refined flour with a whitening agent added
*Plain flour – does not have a leavening agent in it
*Bread flour – high in gluten protein
*All-purpose flour – lower in gluten protein
*Self-rising flour – some leavening agents (like baking powder) are contained which help produce a lighter, softer baked product
*Enriched flour – some of the nutrients which are lost during the process of making flour are added back in

Types of Flour Sources

*Acorn flour – made from ground nuts, can be used as a substitute for wheat flour, used primarily in Native American and Korean cuisine
*Almond flour – suitable for folks who need a gluten-free diet or Coeliac disease
*Bean flour – sometimes made from fava beans, is gluten-free, high in nutrition, but rumored to have a strong aftertaste
*Brown rice flour – what edible rice paper is made from, used most often in Southeast Asian cuisine
*Buckwheat flour – used in US for pancakes and in Japan for soba noodles
*Chickpea flour – used often in Indian cuisine
*Coconut flour – highest fiber content of any flour
*Corn flour – sometimes called corn meal, which is similar but coarser, and is used for making tortillas and tamales in Mexican cooking
*Rice flour – a substitute for those who have gluten problems, contains no gluten
*Rye flour – used primarily in northern European cooking, the base for sourdough, pumpernickel bread uses rye flour which makes it dark and tangy in taste
*Sorghum flour – from grinding whole grains of the sorghum plant
*Tapioca flour – from the root of the cassava plant, used as a starch

Yeah...so there are some flours out there and I, for one, can't wait to start exploring some of these other types.  Not that I don't love my old reliable, but it seems like there's a whole new world to explore.