Corn

I wish we had a tradition of using cornmeal more often in bread. It’s high in natural sugars, so it turbocharges fermentation and adds sweetness. As a baker who likes to work with local grains, it’s hard to find anything more genuinely local or American than this amazing grain, which was first hybridized more than ten thousand years ago by Native Americans. Although they lacked the wheel and other technological advances, the fact that they created corn from its genetic forebears out of the combination of three wild grasses points to a very sophisticated grasp of agriculture. Corn does have a small amount of gluten; however, it’s chemically and structurally different from wheat-based gluten, so it doesn’t create the same sort of air pockets and crumb. That said, the sweet butteriness it brings to a loaf is attractive. Plus, when cornmeal is fermented, it basically creates a mixture similar to a bourbon mash. This gets my vote right away. On the downside, breads made with cornmeal tend to stale quickly, so they should be eaten within a day or so.