Graham flour is a coarsely ground whole wheat flour that contains the endosperm, the bran, and the wheat germ. Year ago it was considered a health food. Graham flour is named after its inventor Sylvester Graham. He began making graham flour in the 1830s, and promoted it as part of a health movement which encouraged eating vegetarian meals and unseasoned foods.
A hundred years ago graham flour was a popular type of flour, and cookbooks contained recipes for graham bread, graham muffins, graham pudding, and other graham foods. Several years ago I bought graham flour at my local store and made a couple old recipes that used graham flour for this blog:
Steamed Graham Pudding with Lemon Sauce
However, when I recently wanted to make a recipe from a 1924 cookbook that called for graham flour, I looked for it at half a dozen stores and couldn’t find it. I eventually bought some (at an outrageous price) off the internet. Each of those stores probably sold at least two dozen other types of flour, some of which sounded very exotic to me. But, why no graham flour? Have tastes changed so much across the past hundred years that a food that once was a common staple is now extremely difficult to find?
While searching for information on graham flour, I learned that modern graham flours sometimes have most of the wheat germ removed to prolong shelf life and to help keep it from going rancid. Some websites say that coarsely ground whole wheat flour can be substituted for graham flour, though as with modern graham flours, most of the wheat germ may have been removed. I guess that even if I follow an old recipe calling for graham flour exactly that I’m probably not accurately replicating it. Sigh. . .
There are fads in food, and you’ve lost one. Sounds like shelf life could have been a deciding factor. Guess we’re into plastic food now.
Like you, I think that shelf life may have been an issue. In some ways it seems strange that extended shelf life is considered so important today when transportation is so good.
I hadn’t thought of transportation. Not only that, almost everyone in the US has a refrigerator and freezer.
Agree – somehow it almost seems countintuitive that the there is such a focus today on shelf life.
The graham flour I’ve found in recent years doesn’t taste like it used to, and your explanation is most likely why. Boston Brown Bread was a staple in New England, even when I was growing up, and traditionally it was made with ‘thirded’ flour which was a combination of graham, rye, and cornmeal. Many of the older baking recipes from this region used this blend; wheat did not grow as well here, so the rye and cornmeal helped to stretch those crops.
I’ve made the brown bread with whole wheat flour, and it does not taste the same.
I love how Boston Brown Bread was traditionally made with “thirded” flour. Foods reflected the local environment and what grew well. I’ve seen recipes for Boston Brown Bread in hundred-year-old cookbooks, but have never made it. Someday I may need to give it a try – though the fact that now it tastes different than it traditionally tasted makes we think that I shouldn’t rush to make it.
I’ve not heard of Graham flour here; must be only in the US. You could add wheatgerm to wholemeal flour which would really boost the goodness!
cheers
sherry
Wonder if adding some wheat germ would help? If they still sell jars of wheat germ.
Adding wheat germ is a good suggestion.
Your comment made me smile. They still sell wheat germ at my local supermarket, but it’s difficult to find. Several years ago, I couldn’t find it and asked a store employee where the wheat germ was. She looked at me like that was the strangest question she had ever heard.
I agree, it is getting more and more difficult to find anything that tastes the way it should, or the way it used to taste. For cooks, it’s frustrating. I have a cookbook written by Olympic runner Dianne Clement dated 1985 in which she has a recipe for graham flour bread – that’s not long ago, really, and I cannot find it anywhere. Bob’s Red Mill is supposed to have it, and I hope to be able to find it – maybe Whole Foods Market. Dianne bakes her recipe in an empty Crisco tin and I really want to try it.
It seems really strange to me that this classic flour is just about impossible to find these days. My sense is that a lot of people would like to make recipes that call for graham flour, if they could only find it. I was just talking with a friend about possible substitutes for graham flour earlier today.