What makes the perfect donut? How about the perfect bao? It’s all in the dough. And the key to good dough? Good wheat.
Wheat is the original superabundant resource for Western civilization. It is predictable, storable and controllable, enabling the rise of cities and facilitating their expanse into empires. Soils in the Pacific Northwest, fed by volcanoes and massive ancient floods, are perfect for a particular kind of wheat, soft white.
Today, soft white wheat is a pillar of the Northwest economy and a key link to world trade, one of Oregon’s most important contributions to the world food system.
This is the fifth episode of OPB's new video series on food and food systems in the Pacific Northwest, "Superabundant."