The uncle who grows organic rice and his flour truck
I often hear farmer friends at the Good Things Market praising the sisters of the Wubaihu Organic Farm, saying that these sisters, now in their twenties, finished university in the north a few years ago and then returned to help at their family farm in Hualien. Just look at their hands and you know they are real farmers who work in the fields, not managers who sit in an office issuing orders.
Every Saturday when I visit the Hualien Good Things Market, I can see this pair of sisters (along with their strong lineup of relatives) selling vegetables in a warm and easygoing way, inviting everyone to drink their own perfumed lemon juice to cool off. I had known them for a while, yet I had never been to their farm near National Dong Hwa University. That was until a while ago, when the second sister called me out, saying that since I am so picky, why not go take a walk around her family's farm?
Rarely, Hualien had been sunny since last week. On a clear early morning of blue skies and white clouds, I showed up at Wubaihu Farm. The second sister enthusiastically accompanied me, a greenhorn, on a walk around the farm, vainly trying to teach me to tell pumpkin leaves from winter melon leaves, the special four-angled stem of yam, the flowers that okra blooms, and so on. But my heart was set on the pineapple plants about to ripen, hoping I could eat some next month. The farm is very large, but I did not see a large crew busy in the fields (I had originally fantasized about helping pick vegetables). She said summer is too hot, most leafy vegetables cannot grow, and farm work is leisurely (for melons and fruits), while winter is actually the busy season. She also kindly pointed out that some vegetables are hard to manage now, and conventional farmers spray a lot of pesticides, so she told me to be careful.
A small truck arrived, and an older man who looked like a farm worker said something to the second sister that I could not hear. The second sister called me over, saying that the older man, who grows organic rice nearby, wanted to give us flour. I thought it was very strange. The older man grows organic rice, which is "rice," so why would there be flour milled from "wheat"? The older man said his friend imports flour, and a batch was about to expire, so he was asked to give it away to friends. He opened the rear door of the truck, and it was loaded with many large packages of German flour. Sir, you are just too warmhearted. Is this not the busy harvest season for you as a rice farmer? Yet you still pay for your own fuel and drive around giving away flour!
We were very happy and thanked the older man, promising that if we made bread we would definitely invite him to eat some. He was very happy to hear that, and quickly unloaded a large bag of rye flour (10 kg pack) and a bag of pizza flour, hoping we would put them to good use, then continued on his delivery route. The second sister told me not to underestimate him. She said he got into organic rice very early and is the head of a production and marketing group, and his remarks at farmers' meetings are always very farsighted.
Not knowing our own limits, we gathered a few ingredients at the farm suitable for making bread (such as pumpkin, beef tomato, basil, green pepper, and eggplant), and that same day went to the second sister's house to try making rye pumpkin bread and four-season vegetable pizza.
Once we started making the bread, it was disastrous. Rye flour does not have the gluten strength of the high-gluten flour we are familiar with; it is more like rice bran or rice meal, a pile of loose sand that simply would not come together into dough. We hurriedly found the small amount of flour left in the house, and while kneading the dough we wailed, "Oh no, the flour the older man gave us is completely unusable, and we do not even know how much high-gluten white flour to add to make bread. How are we going to use up this big 10 kg bag?" In short, the first trial was a nightmare, full of complaints about heaven and man. We even cruelly gave away the failed rye stones to the older man. (We do not know whether he dared to eat them.)
Holding to the idea of not wasting food, within a few days we successively finished eating the rye stones whose appearance and texture were both terrible. Fortunately, by eating our own bitter fruit, we vaguely tasted the good quality of the rye flour, and after discussion decided to try again.
With all the ingredients ready, last night we made organic rye bagels and organic pumpkin bagels. We adjusted the ratio of rye flour to organic high-gluten flour to one to six, and both the aroma and texture were delicious. We now regard rye flour as a treasure, quickly storing it in the refrigerator, determined to make good use of it.
Organic rice older man, I am very sorry, because our skills were poor and for a time we wrongly blamed you. Thank you for the good things you delivered by special vehicle. I hope you like the rye bagels we just sent over, and if you like them we will make more for you. If you can send organic high-gluten flour, that would be even better (just kidding).
Postscript:
1. This article is not meant to celebrate imported ingredients; my staple food is rice, not bread. But having grown up in the city, the sight of nearly expired flour being delivered by the older man in his own vehicle never appeared in my urban memories, and it left a deep impression.
2. I myself very much like "Xiyuan Whole Wheat Noodles" and am also a user of Xiyuan whole wheat flour, but if you want to make bread, aside from imported organic high-gluten flour, there seems to be no local friendly option. The birds in our Hualien are hungry; the wheat fields either fail completely or yield very little. I hear from farmer friends that different gluten strengths come from different wheat varieties. I wonder whether Xiyuan can launch a high-gluten flour? I am looking forward to it.