Kamut: "Soul of the Earth"

I mentioned in my last post that I visited the bakery at Whole Foods during lunch today and bought some sweet potato bread. I saw another loaf that is called ancient grain loaf and because of my interest in ancient grains I had to buy one.

It is a lovely, solid little loaf that reminds me of rolly-polly bugs all rolled into a ball. The ingredients include a medley of ancient grains including:
kamut
spelt
quinoa and
amaranth.

It is a hearty, rich bread with walnuts in it.


I have written about all of the ingredients in this bread except kamut. Kamut® is a registered trademark of Kamut International, Ltd., used in marketing this grain.

Some interesting facts about Kamut include

1. It is an ancient relative of modern durum wheat. 
2. It two to three times the size of common wheat with 20–40% more protein, and higher in lipids, amino acids, vitamins and minerals. 
3. It can be readily substituted for common wheat to make recipes more nutritious. 
4. It has a rich, buttery flavor, and is easily digested. 

The Story of Kamut
After World War II a US airman claimed to find a handful of grain in a stone box within a tomb near Dashare, Egypt. Thirty-six kernels of the grain were given to a friend who mailed them to his father, a Montana wheat farmer.

The farmer planted and harvested a small crop and displayed the grain as a novelty at the local fair. The grain kernels were very large and he called it "King Tut's Wheat." But soon the novelty wore off and this ancient grain was all but forgotten.

T. Mack Quinn and his son Bob obtained the one remaining jar of "King Tut's Wheat" in 1977. They were involved in agriculture and plant biology and soon noticed the uniqueness and possible value of the grain.  They spent the next decade propagating the large, humped-backed kernels.

The Quinns found from their research that wheats of this type originated in the region between Egypt and the Tigris-Euphrates valley. They had "Kamut" trademarked as the name of the wheat because it is the ancient Egyptian name for wheat. Egyptologists claim the root meaning of Kamut is "Soul of the Earth."

For more information about Kamut, visit http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1999/v4-182.html.