Cookbook Review: Roxana Jullapat's 'Mother Grains' has all the makings of a new classic
By Leslie Brenner
Mother Grains: Recipes for the Grain Revolution, by Roxana Jullapat; photography by Kristin Teig, 2021, W. W. Norton & Company, $40.
As we begin to break through to the liberation side of The Great Confinement, finding the silver linings of what we’re leaving behind feels like a sunny way to try to make sense of the world and what we’ve been through.
One of those silver linings is that as a society, we seem more able to take some control of our food choices, and we are moving on from long-held assumptions about the foods available to us. Sourdough obsession illustrates that in microcosm. People couldn’t get great bread. They dove in, devoted themselves to the science and feeding of sourdough, to the baking of bread, and figured it out. It has been transformative for many.
Related to that phenomenon is a new interest in grains: where they come from (geographically and historically), who farms them, how they’re milled and how supporting, purchasing, baking or cooking with and eating them can improve lives all around and in many ways.
I’m not a frequent bread baker, but when I do make my occasional no-knead, Dutch-oven number, it is always whole grain. During pandemic I became hooked on the heritage flours offered by a local(ish) miller, Barton Springs Mill. Outside of baking, I also became obsessed with the heirloom corn sold by Masienda, the Los Angeles-based purveyor that sources its dried corn (and masa harina made from it) from small-scale farms in Mexico. That has been life-changing for me, as I no longer have to settle for tortillas made from commodity corn and bread made from commodity flour. The flavors and textures I’m enjoying are so much better — as is the way I feel about supporting the farmers and millers who make it all possible.
Both Barton Springs Mill and Masienda are part of a larger “grain revolution” — which is the subject of Roxana Jullapat’s outstanding new cookbook, Mother Grains.
Spelt Blueberry Muffins with streusel topping, from Roxana Jullapat’s ‘Mother Grains.’
Jullapat, the renowned baker and co-owner of Friends & Family in Los Angeles, became inspired by the grain farmers and small mills whose products she worked with back when she and her husband, chef Daniel Mattern, had a restaurant called Cooks County (it opened in 2011). “I began using whole grains in our breads and pastries and, for the first time, paid attention to how these new ingredients could transform the way I baked,” she writes in the introduction.
Born in Orange County, CA to immigrant parents — a Thai mother and Costa Rican father — Jullapat lost her mother when she was just two years old; her father moved the family to Costa Rica and remarried. She grew up there, then studied journalism in college, contemplated grad school after getting her degree, but wound up returning to California and attending the Southern California School of Culinary Arts. There she met Mattern, and they both wound up working at Campanile, Nancy Silverton and Mark Peel’s celebrated restaurant. Jullapat went on to serve as pastry chef at two other wonderful restaurants — Lucques and A.O.C. (Mattern was chef de cuisine at A.O.C.)
After she and Mattern closed Cooks County in 2015, Jullapat took two years to experiment with heirloom grains from all over the United States and around the world — and to travel. “I went to Bhutan,” she writes, “where I tasted Himalayan crepes thin and thick and sampled earthy Bhutanese red rice. Then I headed to Turkey, where whole ancient wheat berries are common in savory dishes . . . . Back in Costa Rica, I discovered heirloom blue corn grown organically in the northern region of Nicoya.” Between trips, she visited Southern California farms that were leading the local grain movement.
The book offers a wealth of knowledge about the eight ancient “mother grains” that inspired the title: barley; buckwheat; corn; oats; rice; rye; sorghum and wheat. Did you know that rye is a newer grain — only 2,000 or 3,000 years old — and that it originated in Anatolia, near modern-day Turkey? That it thrives in cold, damp climates, which is why it’s ubiquitous in Scandinavia, Russia and Eastern Europe? Or that buckwheat is a pseudograin, like quinoa, which means it comes not from a grass but from a leafy, flowering bush?
Did you know that flour — especially whole-grain flour — is perishable, and that purchasing from artisan mills or local distributors is a great way to ensure freshness?
Spelt, I learned from the book, is probably the best-known “ancient” wheat, the one Jullapat considers a “gateway” for bakers starting to explore ancient grains. (Other ancient wheats are einkorn, emmer, also known as farro, khorasan wheat and durum.)
Want to discover spelt’s charms? Treat yourself to Jullapat’s Spelt Blueberry Muffins. I did, and they turned out to be far-and-away the best blueberry muffins I’ve ever tasted.
In fact, Jullapat’s recipes are generally spectacular — which is why I think her book deserves to become a classic. I’ve marked dozens of pages of recipes I want to try, and nearly all of the seven I’ve made so far have been exceptional.
The Macadamia Brown Butter Blondies that Jullapat has baked “every day since opening Friends & Family opened in 2017” are a case in point. Brown butter and barley flour give them a wonderful depth, but don’t worry — they’re rich and decadent enough to charm all comers, including kids.
Macadamia Brown Butter Blondies, from ‘Mother Grains’ by Roxana Jullapat. Jullapat writes that she has baked them ‘every day since opening Friends & Family in 2017.’
They’re baked in a round cake pan, “ensuring that each piece has a chewy, toasted exterior and a soft center.” Jullapat points out that because they’re so easy to make, they keep for a few days and they travel well, “they’re an ideal homemade gift you can ship to friends and family all over the country.”
Not all the recipes are sweet. In fact one of my favorites is a savory: Buckwheat Blini with Dungeness Crab Salad.
Blini, as you may or may not know, are leavened pancakes that are traditional in Russia. There, they’re topped with sour cream or melted butter and treats like smoked salmon, whitefish, herring or caviar. According to Anya von Bremzen, author of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, blini are saucer-sized, “never cocktail-sized, and these days people prefer wheat to the archaic buckwheat.”
That’s fodder for another story, one about blini culture. In any case, I so loved the archaic buckwheat mini-blini in Jullapat’s book that I’ve made them twice in two weeks. Or maybe we could say four times: Her recipe makes enough batter for about 3 dozen blini, and both times I made them, I saved some of the batter to cook blini the following day. They’re so good — and so much fun to make — that I’m contemplating making them again tomorrow.
On the subject of the topping, Jullapat suggests that if you’re not a West Coaster, and don’t have access to Dungeness crab, using whatever is locally available. I used defrosted frozen lump blue crab, and that was fine, but I know it would be spectacular with Dungeness. I have also topped these with a smear of crème fraîche and a bit of smoked salmon or smoked trout, a squeeze of lemon and a sprig of dill or snip of chive. So good.
Buckwheat blini with crab salad, avocado and dill, from Roxana Jullapat’s ‘Mother Grains’
We do need to end with a sweet though, and Mother Grains’ Chocolate Dynamite Cookies are winners. Called “dynamite” because of Jullapat’s observation that they elicit explosively positive reactions in those who try them, the fudgy, brownie-like cookies are wheat-free (made with dark rye flour) and completely whole grain. Pretty astonishing for something that tastes so indulgent. Jullapat promises that if you make them, you’ll be invited to “every potluck, picnic and dinner party.” I’m sure she’s right!
I did have a small problem with them the first time I baked them, though I can’t exactly say that it’s the recipe’s fault. The cookies turned out as wonderfully as promised, but I lost my favorite Oxo mixing bowl in the process, thanks to some quirk of physics in which a vacuum was created by the chocolate-melting set-up Jullapat prescribed. I had to throw away that bowl and the pot to which it became permanently and irrevocably adhered. My adaptation won’t get you into that quandary, because I tweaked the melting method, substituting one favored by chocolate expert Alice Medrich.
I also tweaked the mixing instructions for cooks who, like me, do not own a stand mixer, but have a hand-held mixer instead.
Which brings me to the one small wish I have for the book. Because I’d like it to stay in print forever — finding a wide audience and passionate fans — I’m hoping that a future edition will get a fresh round of closer editing than it got the first time around. Among the 7 recipes I tested, nearly all lacked helpful info — particularly about what size bowls to use for various tasks — requiring more guesswork and/or extra dishes to wash than is ideal in a classic cookbook.
There is also a significant error in the book — of the sort an attentive editor or copy editor should have caught. A recipe for Vegan Pozole Verde calls for “2 cups, or 170 g.” of dried hominy. In my kitchen, 2 cups of dried hominy weighs more like 300 g., while 170 grams is 1 generous cup. I prepared the pozole using 170 g. rather than 2 cups, which was the right guess.
In any case, these are small flaws, easy to fix on the next go-round, should that come to pass. The important thing is Mother Grains is a wonderful book, one whose surface I have barely scratched. There are so many more things I want to try: Nectarine and Blackberry Crisp made with rolled oats. Grapple (grape and apple) Pie made with Sonora Wheat Pie Dough. Semolina Cookies with Fennel Pollen. Oatmeal Date Cookies. Crepes Suzette with Blood Orange and Mascarpone.
I could go on and on.
Want in on the deliciousness? Try one or more of the recipes we’ve adapted here at CWB. If you love them as much as we do you’ll want to buy Mother Grains lickety-split.
But wait; there’s more! You’re invited to join us as we host Roxana Jullapat, along with our favorite artisan miller, David Kaisel — founder of Capay Mills in Northern California — at a live video event, part of our new Cooks Without Borders Makers, Shakers and Mavens Q & A series. Attendance is free (limited to 100 people), and we know you’ll want to be there with your questions for Jullapat and Kaisel.
Cooks Without Borders Makers, Shakers and Mavens: The Grain Revolution with Roxana Jullapat and David Kaisel
Thursday, May 27, 3 p.m. PST, 5 p.m. CST, 6 p.m. EST