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Taste Greg Atkinson

Full Circle

From staple to decorative flourish, we celebrate seeds

We generally think of seeds as the beginning of something, the starting point in the life of a plant. But it's easy to think of them as the end point, too. Seeds are, after all, the product at the end of the plant's growing season. Like chickens and eggs, plants and the seeds they bear are two sides of the same coin. And just like chickens, certain seed-bearing plants were domesticated early on to provide us with an ongoing supply of eggs, er, seeds.

Eons ago, the cleverest of our great grandmothers grew weary of wandering about in search of their favorite seeds and started dropping seeds in more convenient places. And everywhere that human beings learned to coax these plants into growing conveniently close to their kitchen doors, folks pulled out any competing plants, fenced off any competing foragers and pampered their chosen ones. So the plants we literally picked for food enjoyed the patronage and protection of their human hosts.

The most significant source of seeds, of course, were the grasses and the legumes that became our grains and beans. With the notable exception of a few tropical cultures where high-calorie roots like taro and potatoes were abundant, every culture on Earth built its early populations on some combination of beans and grains; lentils and wheat, peas and barley, soy beans and rice, pinto beans and corn.

A handful of edible seeds either were so abundant and easy to gather from the wild or offered so little energy-laden starch that no one bothered to cultivate them in earnest until the whole cycle of harvesting vast amounts of seeds and planting crops was already well-established. So a few thousand years after folks started farming grains and beans on a large scale, they allotted some of their fields to crops of flax and poppies, sesame and sunflowers.

As cuisines of the world evolved, these supplemental seeds were pressed for their delicate oils, ground and roasted for their interesting textures and flavors; they were rolled into dough, and scattered like so many decorative flower petals over the surface of dishes savory and sweet. Today, seeds afford the baker and the cook a culinary exclamation point as a finishing touch on everything from curries and candies to bread and rolls. Let's raise a glass to the ancient grandmothers and butter a slice of seed-bread toast in their honor.

Greg Atkinson is author of "West Coast Cooking." He can be reached at greg@northwestessentials.com. Barry Wong is a Seattle-based freelance photographer. He can be reached at studio@barrywongphoto.com.

Seed Bread

Makes 2 loaves

Wheat is, of course, a seed, but we generally think of the starchier seeds as grains, reserving the term seed for the more lignin-bound plant kernels. This homey, old-fashioned bread packs pumpkin, sunflower, poppy, sesame and flax seeds into a grainy loaf, made extra chewy with the addition of cracked wheat softened in boiling water.

1 cup coarsely cracked wheat

1 cup boiling water

1 cup warm water

¼ cup honey

2 packages (or 2 scant tablespoons) active dry yeast

2 cups whole-wheat flour

2 eggs

2 tablespoons kosher salt

¼ cup sunflower or canola oil, plus 1 tablespoon

½ cup pumpkin seeds

½ cup sunflower seeds

¼ cup sesame seeds

¼ cup poppy seeds

¼ cup flax seeds

4 cups unbleached white flour, divided

1. Put the cracked wheat in a small mixing bowl and pour on the boiling water. The cracked wheat will soften a little and absorb most of the water. Let it soak until it's cool enough to touch, about 15 minutes.

2. Rinse a large mixing bowl in hot tap water to warm it up, then discard the hot water and put the cup of warm water in the bowl. Stir in the honey, then sprinkle on the yeast and stir until the yeast is dissolved. Stir in the whole-wheat flour, then stir in the eggs, salt and ¼ cup of oil.

3. Combine all the seeds and set aside ½ cup of the seed mixture to sprinkle over the loaves after they are formed. Stir together the remaining seeds and the pre-soaked cracked wheat and 1 cup of the unbleached white flour. Stir in another cup of the flour, then stir in the remaining flour, 1 cup at a time, switching from a wooden spoon to your hands when the dough becomes too heavy to stir. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured countertop. The dough will be very sticky. Knead the dough, pressing it and folding it until it is smooth and elastic, sprinkling on additional unbleached white flour to keep the dough from sticking to the counter.

4. Clean out the bowl in which the dough was mixed and rub the inside of the bowl with the remaining tablespoon of sunflower oil. Put the kneaded dough in the bowl and turn it over so that the whole ball of dough is lightly coated with the oil. Cover the bowl with a damp, lint-free kitchen towel or with a piece of plastic wrap and put it in a warm place until the dough is doubled in size, about an hour. If the kitchen is cool, put the mixing bowl in a roasting pan half-filled with warm water.

5. Press the air out of the dough and, on a lightly floured countertop, shape it into a log about 18 inches long. Cut the log in half and put the two pieces side by side on a large baking sheet. Allow the loaves to rise in a warm place until they are almost doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

6. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and bake the loaves until they are well-browned, and almost done, about 30 minutes. Brush the loaves with water and sprinkle on the reserved seed mixture; continue baking until the loaves are baked through, about 15 minutes longer. When the loaves are ready, they will make a hollow sound when tapped, and an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of the loaf will register about 195 degrees. Cool the loaves on a rack before slicing.

Greg Atkinson, 2007

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