Heritage Bread Festival in Maine

Discover the forgotten tastes of heritage grains, share seed and celebrate the harvest at the 2021 Heritage Bread Festival

Join artisan bakers, seed savers and farmers at the Heritage Bread Festival in Belfast, Maine on August 18 and 19 to celebrate and renew our connection to bread, once the staff of life but today often a supermarket mass product. These bakers want to change this by sharing heritage bread traditions of ancient and heritage grains, until recently on the verge of extinction. These rare ancient wheats are safe for most people with gluten allergies and absolutely delicious. 

Two full days of workshops span sessions for home bakers to deepen their knowledge or start a micro-bakery to professional bakers seeking to improve methods of working with low-gluten heritage grains. The seed exchange will be especially exciting for seed-savers and organic farmers interested in growing rare heritage grains. 

Our heritage bread bakers bring decades of experience in the field and bakery. The ancient grains were collected in Europe by Eli Rogosa, growseed.org, in cooperation with EU gene banks. Our instructors span Eric Rusch and Melissa Johnson of breadtopia.com bring a depth of experience as baking educators, EJohn Melquist, Trukenbrod Bakery, VT, and beloved Dusty Dowse, kneading.com – Maine Grain Alliance.

The Heritage Bread Festival  brings together world experts and the local community to celebrate not just the wheat harvest and bread, but the renewed interest in heritage grains so it can once again become the life-nourishing staff of life of yore. 

• Learn more about upcoming events in person and online in our Farming Resources thread HERE.

• Find tons of other useful farming resources HERE.