How did ancestral grains become today's gourmet health grains? They take your taste buds back to the dawn of agriculture, when the first growers learned to select for farming the best food stuffs their nomad ancestors had gathered in the wild. Archaeobotanists cite evidence that emmer (Triticum dicoccum) was one of the very first grains domesticated; in fact, they've traced human consumption of wild emmer (Triticum dicoccoides) back to the paleolithic age about 17,000 years ago.

Theory holds that domestication began by selection of strains with obvious agronomic advantages. In the case of cereal grains – all of which belong to the family of grasses – the first emmer seed was probably collected from stands where the kernels were least prone to shatter.

Propagation was a simple matter of saving back some of each harvest for planting. By this method, over a number of plant generations, site specific genetics occurred. The term is 'land race varieties'; they account for the great diversity of strains within the species. Germ plasm depositories, including the one of the USDA at Aberdeen, Idaho, hold thousands of emmer and spelt varieties.

The first fields of emmer and spelt were raised in the fertile crescent of what's today Turkey, Iraq and Iran. In Egypt these crops showed up a little later. As agriculture kept spreading so did the cultivation of emmer and spelt: In biblical times spelt was regarded as "the Mother Grain," Roman soldiers kept their strength up with a daily lunch of 850 grams of emmer that was mixed with cheese and lard and vinegar, and in 301 A.D. the Edict of Diocletian put restraints on the price of spelt to assure food security for the poor.

Spelt also was embraced in central and northern Europe, and east all the way to Russia. In 12th century Germany, the mystic Hildegard of Bingen made use of spelt in her healing diets, proclaiming spelt the "Healing Grain."

Until about 1900, Europeans grew more spelt than wheat for their daily bread. This aspect has American researchers stumped; they can't explain why wheat wasn't preferred, since wheat threshes free and is therefor easier to handle after harvest.

Spelt and emmer were also raised extensively as livestock feeds. In fact, livestock spelts were a fairly big crop in America, amounting to about 600,000 acres by 1910. The decline in America's spelt production is linked to the decline of horse farming as tractors made inroads. By the 1960s spelt was an obscure item, grown only by the Amish who continued to raise it for their draft horses, and by a few ranchers who held onto the traditional ways of feeding spelt to their cattle.

But the rising interest in health foods in the 1970s shed new light on the ancestral grains and their nutritional benefits in human nutrition.

Heirloom varieties across the whole spectrum of food crops came into demand because health conscious consumers distrust the plant breeding methods of the past hundred years. Since science surged in the late 1800s, breeders have manipulated plant genetics by crossing and re-crossing and hybridizing to arrive at "better fruits and fairer flowers," as the most famous early American plant breeder, Luther Burbank, put it.

His work was hailed because it helped reduce the risk of famine. Modern breeding increased yields again and again; in some cases the breeders also introduced plant disease resistance into the new strains; and, as industrial food processing gained the lion's share of the market, cultivars were bred for optimal processing quality: Hello, Twinkies. Concurrent with these trends in breeding, farm chemicals became a growing aspect of mainstream agriculture, allowing for industrialization of farming by monoculture practices.

Heirloom varieties are believed to be superior because they're more natural. That's certainly true, since the incessant breeding of modern cultivars has resulted in foods far removed from the original genetics and nutrition composition that had evolved in nature.

Science is only lately beginning to explain why heritage crops are for better health. This is happening in the context of land grant colleges that have started to breed and select varieties for organic farming systems. At Washington State University, for instance, the organic wheat breeding program accessed varieties going back as far as the 1860s. "It's possible that the old varieties are able to mine more nutrients out of the soil," one of the WSU breeders acknowledges. "It's possible that we've inadvertently selected against that in modern breeding, because chemical fertilizers are so easily available to the plants."

A Montana State University comparison study of modern wheat and spelt, the probable precursor of wheat, confirmed that spelt does indeed have a considerably better uptake of soil nutrients, particularly of minerals like zinc. That study also ascertained that spelt is more easily digested than wheat, and even oats, by livestock.

As for the allergenic properties of spelt, the mystery continues. Whereas every major research paper on hulled grains cites the fact that spelt is safely consumed by people with certain wheat allergies, no exact reason for that has been determined, although the MSU paper notes that the spelt gliadin proteins – one group of functional proteins that are glutenous – are distinctly different from those in wheat.

It should be noted here that spelt and emmer products are wheat-free but not gluten-free. People with celiac disease, i.e. allergy to gluten, are advised to consult their doctor regarding spelt and emmer diets.

The outstanding goodness of Eastern Washington-grown Lentz Spelt and Lentz Emmer is due to the soil characteristics here, as well as the climate. Eons of volcanic eruptions have deposited multiple layers of minerals east of the Cascades, which micro-nutrients our spelts and emmer express to a high degree. And, the dry and sunny disposition of the growing months makes our region a world leader in quality of cereal grains.

In chosing our cultivars we were particularly discriminating, because spelt and emmer varieties vary immensely in their baking and cooking qualities, and consequently flavor. Following variety tests by the USDA Western Wheat Quality Laboratory in Pullman, we obtained the exclusive Pacific Northwest rights to two top-ranked cultivars. They're patented varieties raised as certified foundation seed each year. Although expensive because we're required to pay royalties, our patented seed program assures absolute genetic purity, year after year. In addition, our fields are rogued by hand every summer to further eliminate any plant contamination.

In contrast to free-threshing wheat, spelt and emmer are harvested with the hull around the kernel intact. This protects the grain from pollution, but necessitates the pre-processing of the crop; we use German technology to de-hull our grain before conditioning and shipping.

• RECIPES: Lentz spelt and Lentz emmer farro can be cooked, baked, fried, roasted, brewed in a million scrumptious ways. If you like to experiment you will want to use our spelt as alternative to hard red wheat in recipes, our emmer farro as alternative to durum wheats. However, in baking, water absorbance and dough mixing time varies from that of wheat flour.

A great source for excellent spelt recipes is Helga Hughes' The Spelt Cookbook, © 1995, available from Avery Press, ISBN 0-89529-696-9.

For Lentz emmer recipes go to websites with the keyword farro – that's the name for emmer in Italy where it's remained a favorite of connoisseurs.