Chicken & Barley Soup (Canadian—New Brunswick

“Hudson Bay” White Lammas Wheat

French Canadians were early Palouse Country explorers and many settled in the Walla Walla area (“Frenchtown”) and Oregon’s Willamette Valley were retired workers for the Hudson’s Bay Company at Ft. Vancouver and other posts maintained by “The Honorable Company” throughout the Pacific Northwest. HBC Governor Sir George Simpson personally brought the region’s first commercially raised grains— English White Lammas, on his first personal inspection of Columbia Department operations in 1825. 

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Chicken & Barley Soup (Canadian—New Brunswick)

½ teaspoon pepper

1 cup carrots sliced

1 bay leaf

½ cup celery chopped

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon paprika

2 tablespoons fresh parsley cut

½ lbs. chicken 

10 ounces frozen peas

2 quarts water

 ½ lb. mushrooms sliced

½ cup pearl barley  

2 tsp poultry seasoning

1 med onion chopped

Combine chicken, water, barley, onion, poultry seasoning, salt, pepper, paprika, and bay leaf in large kettle and bring to boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer approximately 1 hour until chicken is tender. Remove chicken from broth. Cook chicken, remove meat from bones and dice. Add carrots, celery, and mushrooms to broth. Cover and simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Return diced chicken to soup mixture with peas and parsley; cook until heated through.

A Special Visit from America's Pancake Queen

Recent days have witnessed a number of special events related to Palouse Colony Farm and regional heritage. New York culinary writer Amy Halloran, author of The New Bread Basket: Redefining Our Daily Loaf (Chelsea Green, 2015), was our guest at the farm last month. Popularly known as “America’s Pancake Queen,” Amy says she has wanted to devote her life to the fine art of pancake-making since grade school, and has a picture of the note she wrote to her fourth grade teacher to prove it.

Amy Halloran & Friends with “Founding Farmer” Pancakes, Endicott Food Center

Amy has worked with us since last year to document authentic recipes of breads and pancakes from America’s colonial and pioneer era, and formulated an authentic “thirded” blend of heritage English White Lammas wheat, Yellow Dent corn, and Scots Bere barley flours based on recipes used by “Founding Farmers” George and Mary Washington at Mt. Vernon. Amy hosted a group of Palouse Colony Farm friends for a pancake breakfast at Jenny Meyer’s Endicott Food Center, and presented with Richard on regional food networks at Spokane’s Farm & Food Expo on November 5. Culinary writer Samuel Fromartz writes of The New Bread Basket: “If you’re curious about the future of bread, beer, or even the locavore movement itself, this is the place to start.”

You can read more about Amy's visit on her blog here.

Barley & Potato Soup (Volga German)

This wholesome soup and related variations have been winter mainstays in homes like ours across the Pacific Northwest for generations. The presence of allspice is a nod to American influence as the Old World flavorings most commonly used for this dish in the were dill, parsley, and pepper. The recipe is from Evelyn Reich of Colfax, a lifelong Palouse Country resident.

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Barley & Potato Soup (Volga German Gashta-Katofel Sopa) 

• 2 quarts vegetable stock
• 4 whole allspice
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 garlic cloves minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• sour cream

• 1 cup pearl barley
• 3 medium potatoes peeled and diced
• 2 celery stalks diced
• 1 large onion diced
• 1 carrot grated
• 4 strips bacon, beef soup bone, or ham hock

Boil barley and spices in water for two hours. Add 4 cubed potatoes, celery, onion, and carrot, and simmer an additional hour until vegetables and barley are tender. Fry bacon until crisp and add with drippings to the soup, or add soup bone to mixture. Place a dollop of sour cream to each bowl just before serving.