HOURANI

Hourani Wheat Culinary Details 

Hourani is a versatile durum wheat and it is a traditional variety for making pasta  noodles, but also makes delicious bread, pizza dough, and pastries. The flavor profile reminds  us of sweet, buttery corn on a summer day, and as one baker relayed, Hourani bread has “a  nutty, yeasty fragrance, with a moist, chewy crumb. In short, it is an exceptional flour.” 

All Honoré flour, including Hourani, is regeneratively farmed and stone-milled into 100% whole  wheat resulting in more nutritious and flavorful flour than commercial whole wheat products.

Hourani + Honoré 

Honoré Farm and Mill invites you to discover and help preserve Hourani  wheat - an ancient heirloom grain that was buried at the Masada Fortress in  73 CE to protect it from Roman siege. In the 1960s, it was found deep within  the Fortress stored in earthen jars and excavated by archeologists. Today, the grain is sparsely  grown in various parts of the Holy Land. 2,000 years later, Hourani and other heirloom varieties  face a new siege from industrialized farming practices.

In 2018, Honoré received a small bag of Hourani seeds from the Principle Wheat Breeder at  Washington State University’s Bread Lab, Steve Lyon. Steve had acquired the grains from the  USDA seed bank in 2016 to grow and replicate with Honoré in mind. 

With the help of a handful of dedicated farmers, a wheat scientist, and dozens of passionate  volunteers, we have been able not only to grow this incredible ancient grain, but to exponentially  increase our yield year over year. We started with a handful of seeds four years ago, and in  summer 2022, we harvested over 10,000 pounds!

Naturally drought tolerant and able to adapt to warming temperatures, Hourani and other ancient  varieties tell the story of resilience, all while increasing the biodiversity of our staple food crops.