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Moutoux Orchard brings local grain within reach
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Rob Moutoux grows and mills grains just outside D.C. Photo by the author.
In Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet, the Vancouver, B.C.-based authors go to great lengths for wheat. In a memorable episode, the couple treks out to a farm that grew an experimental wheat crop the year before for some wheat berries, only to find their treasure is laced with mouse droppings. They return to a daily regimen of potatoes for carbohydrates, but far from enjoy it. “We need to get some wheat or I’m going to go out of my f---ing mind,” co-author J.B. MacKinnon growls to his partner over breakfast.
Some have noticed that in D.C. , wheat grown nearby is just as hard to find. “Grains are entirely missing from the local foods scene," said Rob Moutoux of Moutoux Orchard in Loudoun County, Va. "But they’re such a staple in our diet, and there’s no reason we can’t do it right here.”
Moutoux believes his farm is the only one in the D.C. area that is growing, processing, and retailing whole grains. By my calculations, it is the only one within 100 miles of Washington growing grain for retail sale. Anyone seeking to follow an all-local diet in the capital can ease the challenge by visiting Moutoux at the Dupont Circle FreshFarm Market, as well as two markets in northern Virginia and at the farm.
“A hundred years ago, Loudoun County had over 25 grist mills processing wheat, but now that has all entirely disappeared," Moutoux said. That was his main motivation for starting to grow wheat, spelt, barley, buckwheat, and oats alongside the fruit that has carried the family business for three generations.
Moutoux started last year with a quarter acre of wheat—more than enough to keep the Plenty couple happy for quite a while—and then ground it into flour and sold it to customers who came to the farm for produce. This year, he sowed 12 acres and added plantings of the other grains. He expanded his distribution by selling at those three farmers markets in D.C. and Virginia. The spelt crop did not fare as well as Moutoux had hoped, and the buckwheat is still not guaranteed. But there is always next year.
Customers are already giving positive feedback about the whole wheat, according to FreshFarm Markets. I personally tried it in muffins and bread, with great results. Moutoux is now offering whole wheat berries and whole oats, as well.
The whole wheat flour (there is no white flour) is ground on a series of small steel burred mills, and has a rich, stone-ground courseness. It also is relatively low in gluten, so Moutoux recommends combining it with white flour in at least a one-to-one ratio (similar to other whole grain flours) or adding vital wheat gluten. For himself, Moutoux said, the dense baked goods his flour produces are just fine.
More information: For market locations, go to the Moutoux Orchard website.
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