On The Flours In My Kitchen
If in casual conversation you mention flour, it is nearly a cinch that you are referring to what Americans know as all-purpose flour. The British, who never miss an opportunity to call foodstuffs something other than the American name – although I really don’t know which label came first here – know it as plain flour. Growing up, I knew it as harina de Castilla, or Castille flour, don’t know why, to differentiate it from other common foods we also called flour.
Whatever you call it, this is the type of wheat flour that most people use for baked goods, and, for some reason, has become the default embodiment of “flour.” But the world of flours is vast. I don’t just mean the different types of wheat flour, for there are many, but flours made from so many other grains, pulses, tubers, and more. To list them all would be probably impossible for a single person, I just don’t know every flour that exists in the world, but I can tell you about what I have in my kitchen right now and why.