BUCKWHEAT FLOUR

When we lived in West Virginia, in November the stores would have shelves filled with buckwheat flour. By the end of the month it was gone.  Buckwheat flour was packaged in a heavy, white paper sack tied at the top with a piece of twine string. The bag would have BUCKWHEAT FLOUR, and a simple design like a barn or a tractor. On the bottom would be printed the weight, the mill where it was ground, and the town in West Virginia where the mill was located. On the back of the bag, imprinted with a rubber stamp, there would be a recipe for buckwheat pancakes, or sometimes the recipe was on a slip of paper inside the bag.

To make the batter for buckwheat pancakes, mix buckwheat flour, baking soda, and buttermilk or you can use sweet milk and yeast. Let the batter sit out all night. The next day, add eggs, molasses, and more milk to thin the batter.

Buckwheat pancakes are an acquired taste. My wife and sons never acquired the taste. The pancakes are heavy enough so that a stack of them would hold down a barn roof in a hurricane. A bellyful will keep your feet on the ground in the worst snow squall. They are grey in color like papier mache made from newspapers. I would love to have a stack of them right now.

When I left West Virginia I had to give up a number of foods that are reserved for mountaineers – ramps, salt rising bread, scrapple, leather britches beans cooked with a hunk of salt pork, apples from the sauerkraut barrel, and buckwheat pancakes.