Grain Milling @ Making Brooklyn Bloom
Brooklyn-grown sorghum grains in a South Carolina sweetgrass basket next to wheat seedlings from BBG’s nursery. (Workshop photos by Daphne Brunache)
Participants coming up to check out the mill and grain seedlings (BBG’s propagationist had sown millet, oats, buckwheat, and wheat for us to give out).
Maya getting things set up for the workshop prior to participants arriving.
This year’s theme at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Making Brooklyn Bloom conference was “Many Hands, Light Work” and for our morning & afternoon workshops we offered a session called A Gathering of Stones: Stories of Communal Grain Production.
During our time together we journeyed through some of the histories of grain production and milling technologies with rice, corn, sorghum, and wheat as our guides. Starting with a look at what makes something a grain and then getting into the origins of the aforementioned grains, which have not only been important to the African and Indigenous regions they’re native to, but have over several centuries of stewardship established themselves as significant to countless cultures and ecosystems across the globe.
Then we got into grain processes and stone milling technologies that have their origins in Western Asian regions (e.g. Syria and Palestine), as well as across North and Central America (e.g. Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico). Technologies that are still in use which was demonstrated live with our grain mill that has a rotary quern using corundum stones. Following our discussion, we milled some fresh sorghum flour for folks to take home and continue their grain conversations.
A Gathering of Stones Deep Routes (Grain Processing Slide)
A Gathering of Stones Deep Routes (Grain Milling Technologies Slide 1)
A Gathering of Stones Deep Routes (Grain Milling Technologies Slide 2)
Sorghum flour can be used as a gluten-free flour substitute in combination with other gluten-free grains and starches, or skip the milling and eat it whole like you would rice or oats.
Much appreciation to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for having us back this year, and continued appreciation to the Laundromat Project’s Create & Connect Fund (applications are live for this grant now as of April 1st 2025) that made it possible for us to purchase this mill last year for our programming!
Selected grain books.
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