Terra Breads

Terra Breads is an artisan bakery specializing in crusty sourdough based breads made with quality ingredients using traditional slow-rise methods; we bake our breads in stone-hearth ovens fresh daily.  On April 18th, cyclists are invited into our Terra Breads False Creek Bakery & Cafe to observe bakers rolling out flatbreads made with Red Fife Wheat and to sample the flatbreads baked fresh in our stone hearth oven.  On the cafe patio you can watch Johann of Pedal Power, grinding grain using an old converted bicycle.  Johann is passionate about converting old bikes to new uses and has a pedal powered grain grinder.

Terra Breads is working with Robert Giardino of the Heritage Grains Foundation to showcase Red Fife Wheat to help support widespread cultivation of this Ark of Taste crop. The Heritage Grains Foundation, a non profit organization dedicated to the preservation and cultivation of open pollinated, non GMO varieties of grains, will be kicking off the “Grow The Gold” Heritage Wheat Fundraiser Project as a participant in the Bike the Blossoms event.

In 2003 Slow Food Canada’s Vancouver Island Chapter (Mara Jernigan and Sinclair Philips, co chairs) nominated Red Fife for the Ark of Taste, Canada’s first nomination to the Ark. The Red Fife Presidia was created. On September 14, 2003 Red Fife wheat had it’s first public taste testing event in the west thanks to the Slow Food movement and Wildfire Bakery.

In 2004 at the Slow Food Terra Madre and the Salone del Gusto celebration in Italy, Red Fife wheat was one of the stars of the event. Wildfire Bakery, Victoria baker Cliff Leir baked bread each day allowing the world a taste of one of Canada’s oldest living artifacts – Red Fife wheat in sourdough artisan bread. Taste has never been a consideration of ‘quality’ in the Canadian wheat grading system yet is of significant ‘value’ to people in the Slow Food movement.

Canada’s first presidium, Red Fife Wheat, is the result of the work of farmers, millers, researchers and bakers who, together with Slow Food have successfully increased seed stocks and re-commercialized this wheat on the brink of disappearing.  Today more artisan bakers are using Red Fife wheat and a growing number of consumers are demanding this heritage wheat bread. The presidium helps to ensure ongoing quality, promotion and the use of Red Fife across all of Canada. This flavorful and hearty wheat fed Canada from the 1860s to the 1910s, and now once again, it is being enjoyed by a diversity of Canadians from coast to coast.