Moulin de Sebrevet - local flour mill

We are so lucky to have a working flour mill 300 metres from our new place. It is run by the grandaughter of the lady who used to live in our house.
In fact hubby has headed south with 2 x 25 kilo bags of a mix of types of flour for some people we know that run a creperie in Beziers.
There is a wonderful choice of flour and it is well known in the area and stocked at the local supermarkets.
I took a bag to a friend who in turn gave it to La Table Bretonne owner who in turned used it at his restaurant and his diners were most impressed hence the delivery in larger quantities!

I am ashamed to say that I have yet to make a single thing from this local supplier. Totally unforgiveable but I have been busy working on making a kitchen so I can cook with the flour eventually! There is an old bread oven in the little house, (chaumiere) nicknamed the pizza oven. I close my eyes and can imagine that wonderful dough cooking and filling the walls with that always comforting aroma!

Here is some flour and bread info........

According to a joke, French law bans walking more than seven paces from a boulangerie without pinching and tasting a just-bought baguette. The joke states that the penalty for this offense is unknown, because it is a law no one has ever been able to break.

During the 19th century Brittany was producing 50 percent of the buckwheat flour but at the end of 19th Century potatoes and new types of cereals were grown instead. In the 80’s and 90’s Brittany had to import flour from Russia or China

French bread is required by law to avoid preservatives, ( get this wrong in translation and oops – preservatives means condoms in French!) and as a result bread goes stale in under 24 hours, thus baking baguettes is a daily routine.

French food 'police' also define that bread as a product should only contain only the following four ingredients: water, flour, yeast, and common salt. The addition of any other ingredient to the basic recipe requires the baker to use a different name for the final product. As a result, the traditional baguette is made from a very lean dough, made from bread flour, with an average protein content of 11.5 percent. I not so sure about that. I bought a baguette from the supermarket the other day and there were 7 ingredients in it. Perhaps those from a supermarket come under different regulations??

Buckwheat, originally brought to France from Asia during the Crusades, began to be cultivated in Brittany in the late XVth century. This type of grain came to be an essential crop The original galettes, made with buckwheat flour, were peasant food, the bread of the people. At this time, regular wheat flour, which did not grow well in Brittany’s soils, was expensive and hard to come by, thus reserved for the nobility! No change there then!

Flour comes in grades. The grades are based on the amount of flour which has been extracted from the grain of wheat. This ranges from 70% of the grain for white flour, type 45, up to 95% for wholegrain flour - type 150. The browner the flour, the more husk is in it, and more husk means more herbicides, insecticides etc are found in the flour, unless you choose organic. Type 45 flour is for pastries, 55 is used for white bread, and types 65, 80, 110 and 150 are for various kinds of brown bread. The higher the type, the browner the bread.

Enough facts for today but I will leave with you this...... the baguette is said to be originally from Austria,, tell that to the French - not!