This is Canada! Dozens of highly skilled researchers beavering away creating new ideas and potentially new products with darn near no recognition. Buried in the downtown Winnipeg tower of the Canadian Grain Commission, a stones throw from legendary Portage and Main, teams of scientists delve deep into the properties of new varieties of some 21 different grains and oil seeds. These people bounce back and forth between the global picture and the most minute detail of say...the colour of the durum wheat in a piece of pasta or whether the shape of a loaf of bread made with Canadian wheat will work for a traditional Columbian bread called Alinado or how light a particular variety of canola or flax or mustard or safflower works in making my fave salad dressing. The work is as specific as one paper by Garth Paulley on the "Effects of Ingredients and Processing Conditions on Bread Quality When Baking Syrian Two-Layered Flat Bread from Canadian Wheat in a Traveling Oven." Here the 100 mile diet clearly makes absolutely no sense - particularly if Canada is to remain competitive and take her place in feeding an ever hungrier and needy world. A
nd besides, I want to bake good bread and make Alex's Perfect Pasta, the dish that absolutely relies on durum semolina, in my home in Ontario and it's these folks who make the new varieties work so that I can. GO CANADA GO!!!!
