Everyone’s got a favorite food. But how about a favorite crop? Dr. Stephen Jones, director of Washington State University's Bread Lab in Mt. Vernon, loves wheat. A lot.
"The sheer beauty of the crop in a field like this ... you can almost hear the voices in it — the voices of the tradition, the voices of the people that came before us into this crop," said Jones. "I don't get that when I walk into a lettuce field, but I do in wheat."
Beyond appreciating the beauty of the field, Jones directs crop breeding and research. As director of the WSU Bread Lab, he and his students want to understand how to grow better, more nutritious wheat everywhere. But even more than that, he wants to elevate wheat from a commodity to a real food — one whose flavor reflects the place and climate where it is grown.
Sound Effect's Gabriel Spitzer went out to the WSU Bread Lab and talked with Jones about why he loves this lowly crop, and why he stands up for bread in an anti-gluten era.
