It’s no secret that I’m a proponent of local. Local meat, local produce, #getacsa. But what about grains?
Can those be local? Do we even produce them here in Virginia? About a year ago, I sifted through my pantry and saw flours from Bob’s Red Mill and King Arthur, lentils from the Dakotas, and rice from India or the Lundberg family in California. ‘There have to be mills around here somewhere,’ I thought. And the search was on.
Ritual Fine Foods maintains a list organized by US state for where to source local and organic grains.
Below, you’ll find several mills local to Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas, which is the general area I’m going to go ahead and call “local” for myself. Most of them ship but I set out on a mission to visit each one and replace 90% of the packaged items in my pantry with locally-sourced grains, meals, and rice.
Wade’s Mill. Wade’s Mill is an awesome mill just outside of Charlottesville, VA. It’s been milling local grains since 1750, is open to visitors, and even hosts an annual 5K. The mill offers: grits, cornmeal, corn flour, wheat flour (whole wheat and white), wheat bran, farro and winter wheat, buckwheat flour, rye flour, and spelt flour.
Migrash Farm in Maryland, milling kosher Chesapeake grain. For us Virginians, this is as truly local as it gets! Migrash is a small operation but the quality of its product is fantastic. It is said of Migrash that “the primary farmer can be contrarian and ornery; others who work there abiding and of refined character.” The harvests appear on the website but, typically, the mill offers: flours made from einkorn, seasonal wheats, rye, and spelt, in addition to rolled oats (for oatmeal!) corn flour, cornmeal, grits, and whole kernels.
Anson Mills is a larger operation out of South Carolina and is featured in many farm-to-table settings (restaurants, B&Bs, etc.) throughout the region, to include at The Biltmore Estate. The mill offerings are diverse: grits, corn, and polenta made from white, yellow, and blue corn; gold and brown rices and rice flours; semolina, pizza flours, bread flours, pastry flours, and whole wheat and white flours; rye flour; rolled oats; farro; gluten-free flour; and season peas (such as red peas!).
Castle Valley Mill just outside of Philadelphia mills mostly local PA grains. The mill offers: whole and ground emmer, spelt, and rye, grits, cornmeal, and flours.
My CSA, run by Potomac Vegetable Farms, partners with many local operations to offer more products than just produce. Recently, they provisioned dried black beans and crowder peas sourced from The Farm at Sunnyside (@farmerchefcasey). And oh my God, they are the BEST black beans I have ever tasted.
Which brings me to some gaps in local sourcing. If anyone knows where to find the following items locally in the region, please drop it in the comments section: lentils, beans (of any kind), dried peas (of any kind), petite couscous, steel-cut oats, barley, and quinoa.
Finally, a couple things to note before seeking out local grains and legumes:
- Since they do not contain preservatives, they don’t keep as well or as long as the ones bought in the store. Yes, I invested in some large glass cannisters and, yes, I love them. But this isn’t necessary. Just make sure you have enough cool, dry storage space in your pantry and some room in the freezer as well.
- The local flours often require more in recipes, sometimes almost double. For example, when I made pancakes with the local flour, I needed close to four cups as opposed to the two cups of all-purpose flour the recipe called for.
