At Wichita’s downtown culinary school, this year’s Earth Day was marked with plates piled high.
It’s not often the annual environmental protection event features encouragements of consumption, but organizers of the gathering at the National Institute for Culinary Hospitality Education, or NICHE, encouraged local chefs and foodies alike to practice some conscious consuming of a little grain called Kernza.
Kernza is wheat’s distant and more sustainable cousin.
The grain was developed from an intermediate wheatgrass that’s native to Central Europe and Asia, but has been around in the United States since the 1930s. In the 1980s researchers selected it as a potential starting point for developing a grain that’s perennial — meaning the plant will keep growing and producing year after year, even when harvested.
Those efforts were picked up by the Salina-based nonprofit, The Land Institute, in the early 2000s which worked for more than a decade to breed a strain with improved yield, seed size and disease resistance. The end result was Kernza.
The first large-scale commercial harvest of Kernza happened on a 30-acre farm in Kansas in 2010, but even before that harvest it attracted enthusiasts.
James Bowden first saw it at the Prairie Festival in Salina around 2008.
“I went on a tour of the greenhouse and the research director at the time told me, ‘One of the plants in this room might just save the world,’ and it kind of blew my mind,” Bowden said.
Bowden comes from a farming family with more than 140 years of experience near Gypsum, Kansas. He said from that first introduction to Kernza, he was hooked. Today he is the community engagement director for Sustain-A-Grain, which grows Kernza in McPherson and Marion counties and supplies Kernza-based food products.
He travels the country promoting Kernza to farmers, businesses and consumers. The source of Kernza’s sustainable edge and staying power comes from its roots, he said.
Kernza’s roots spread 10 feet down into the soil, preventing erosion and pulling in nitrogen from the soil and away from the groundwater. As a perennial crop, Kernza takes fewer tractor passes than wheat to nurture and harvest each year. Fewer tractor passes means fewer emissions as well.
Early Kernza crops were planted as feed for livestock — Bowden said cows love it — but growers like Sustain-A-Grain are working to nurture a consumer market.
Depending on the audience, Bowden’s pitch changes. For health-focused crowds, he talks up Kernza’s high protein and fiber content. For environmentalists, it’s all about the lower emissions and carbon sequestration provided by Kernza — which studies have shown can capture up to a thousand pounds of carbon per acre per year.
With farmers, Bowden talks about Kernza’s strength at preventing erosion through its “prolific roots.”
But the end point of Bowden’s pitch is always the same.
“This might be the thing that creates some longevity within our food system,” he said.
Which is where chefs like John Michael come in. John and Lexi Michael, a husband and wife team, head NICHE. John Michael is the school’s director, and Lexi Michael is the dean of culinary arts. They started working with Sustain-A-Grain and Kernza five years ago.
“For me, I call it the pre-spiced grain because it has a lovely, very subtle, but kind of warm spice to it,” John Michael said. “It’s almost like there’s a little cinnamon or nutmeg or allspice or something going on there.”
The Michaels incorporated Kernza into the NICHE curriculum and bistro menu. Students in the institute’s advanced baking classes get to work with the grain, and classes on sustainability and innovation focus on Kernza as well.
“We’ve kind of taken up the flag for Kernza after meeting James, just because we realize we’re creating the next tastemakers and think it’s important to be having an effect on our food system,” Lexi Michael said.
This year, Sustain-A-Grain and NICHE pulled together a group of chefs from seven Wichita-area restaurants to experiment with Kernza. The goal was to show some of the city’s most prominent chefs and critics that an appetite for sustainable, Earth-conscious eating could be fulfilled with Kernza.
The end result was a feast: savory scones from Larcher’s Market, Detroit-style pizzas from Public, nori Kernza pasta salad from Lotte, a Neapolitan panuozzo sandwich from the Belmont, croissants from Reverie Roasters, Japanese milk bread from FioRito Ristorante. And from the dessert experts at Frost: Kernza ice cream served up on a Kernza waffle cone.
Guests at the potluck filled their plates and numerous to-go boxes as well.
Josh Rathbun, executive chef at Lotte in downtown Wichita, said working Kernza into the foods that his customers love wasn’t too difficult.
“I’m personally, as a chef, more motivated by a Kansas-grown grain that's good for Kansas farmers and good for Kansas people to consume and good for Kansas — that motivates me,” Rathbun said.
Several chefs said the Earth Day challenge was a good introduction to a grain they’re hoping to make a staple of their menus.
Kernza already serves as an important ingredient in the pizza dough at Public. Rathbun said the grain will make its debut on Lotte’s next menu.
