Our mission is to inspire and empower people who are building local grain economies.
We create connections and share grain traditions and innovations from earth to table.
Kneading Conference Spotlights:
Creating Seaweed Bread
Sea vegetables are all the rage these days as innovative flavorful healthy ingredients. Their uses are moving far beyond their traditional place in sushi and Japanese cuisine to a wide variety of applications including in breads. The coast of Maine provides an abundant source of sea vegetables and these products have been commercially available in Maine for the past 40 years.

In this demonstration class learn how to bake several breads made with Maine grown and milled grains and seasoned with a variety of sea vegetables including kelp, dulse, and rockweed and kelp. We will taste and discuss the flavor profiles of different sea vegetables and consider their baking characteristics and which grains pair best with different sea vegetables.ed time only" or "only 7 remaining!"
About the presenter-

Jim Amaral is the founder of Borealis Breads and is a pioneering baker who was the first to champion the use of locally grown grains in Maine and has been baking with them since 1996.

Jim is also a talented photographer so keep an eye out for his photos of Maine grains and grain entrepreneurs on display at the conference. His latest book, Borealis Breads:75 Recipes for Breads, Soups, Sides, and More is available from Down East Books.
The Kneading Conference welcomes Ellen Messer, Ph.D.

We are thrilled to have Dr. Ellen Messer join us to share her reflections on maize-based food systems and cuisine. She will take part in both flint corn workshops on the schedule alongside Dusty Dowse (MGA Baking Education Director, ) and then the following day with Albie Barden (longtime corn seed saver).

Ellen is an anthropologist dedicated to ending hunger and advancing human rights. Her ethnographic work over the 1970s and 1980s in Mexico included ethnobotanical research and additional studies of women's roles and time allocation in transforming diets and food systems. 

After teaching anthropology at Yale and other universities, Ellen moved into the multi-disciplinary World Hunger Program at Brown University, an academic think-tank, NGO, and science policy center, where she combined research on breaking the links between hunger and conflict, the human right to food, and explored potential impacts of new agro-biotechnologies on hunger. 

Currently she continues research and teaching as visiting faculty of the School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and as faculty of the Gastronomy MLA program at Boston University's Metropolitan College. Beyond research and teaching, she also enjoys hiking and birdwatching, cooking and culinary history, biblical exegesis and religious dialogue, and occasionally write poetry.
In this workshop we will consider where corn came from and how it came to nourish all the cultures in the hemisphere. And in the present, we will start with locally-grown native flint corn to yield the staple food of the most ancient civilizations in the hemisphere, the tortilla.
Know Your Mainer

Swing by and say hello to the Maine Grain Alliance tomorrow at  Whole Foods Market  as we take part in their "Know Your Mainer" series. We will be on the patio discussing our work and mission from 10am-1PM.

We will mill up wheat berries, have cooked grains to sample, and sell an assortment of local baked goods using Maine grown grains (including chocolate chip cookies!) We hope to see you tomorrow in Portland!
MOFGA Farm and Homestead Day

June 22, 2019
Saturday, 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
MOFGA's Common Ground Education Center, Unity
FREE • Open to the public

Join MOFGA and the MGA for the eighth year of this hands-on, skill-building event! Zak and Jody will be firing the MGA oven and sharing pitas with attendees. If you've never watched pitas bake in a wood-fired oven, it looks like a balloon inflating! We hope to see you there!
Maine Grain Alliance | kneadingconference.com