We may not know what the early Dutch colonists were thinking when they arrived on the shores of the New World, but it’s probably safe to say they weren’t concentrating on future pancakes. The packets of seed buckwheat tucked into their baggage might have been intended as eventual animal feed. They already knew that this ancient, short-season grain, imported to Europe from Asia millenniums earlier, could grow well in soil and weather conditions that would stunt or kill other crops. And if all else failed, the buckwheat could help nourish them, too. It probably did.

Buckwheat spread with these first settlers north to Albany, then westward with the European expansion into central New York.

In 1797, around the time President George Washington was getting ready to retire to Mount Vernon, the Wagener family, having settled in Penn Yan, had begun to harness the water power of an outlet stream flowing from Keuka Lake to Seneca Lake to mill buckwheat and other grains. That original mill burned in 1823 and was promptly rebuilt. The “new” mill has been in continuous operation for 200 years. The Birketts owned it in the late nineteenth century and the name stuck, even though it’s the Gifford family who currently owns the mill at 1 East Main Street.

On a perfect fall day, the air in the village holds the deliciously nutty smell of roasting buckwheat. Kyle Gifford, president and COO of the Birkett Mills, holds a hand under a stream of buckwheat exiting a large truck into a pipeline leading into the mill. Freshly harvested, the buckwheat kernels are shiny and black. Because tiny amounts of other grains could have snuck into the harvest, the buckwheat’s first stop is a machine called a color-sorter, which discerns and separates buckwheat from other grains based on color. Nothing is wasted—the rejected seeds are sold as animal feed.

Then the buckwheat is hulled, revealing the pale brown kernels inside. The hulls are bagged for mulch. Some of the hulled buckwheat is sold in bulk as whole groats (groats can be any hulled grain broken into pieces larger than grits). Some is ground into flour. And much of it is milled into coarse, medium, and fine groats which, along with some of the whole buckwheat, is toasted to bring out its nutty flavor before being packed for distribution. “It’s not a technical process,” Kyle explains. “It’s more art than science.” And the scent makes you hungry.

Called kasha, the toasted grain, much of it packaged under the Wolff’s label, a Birkett brand, is distributed across the United States. Some of the flour, kasha, and groats are also sold in bulk and packaged for distribution by other companies, here and abroad.

The toasting happens in four large antique coffee roasters in an adjacent building, overseen by a rotating crew of workers. Kyle knows them all. Walking through the mill, he’ll ask about someone’s grandchild and someone else’s vacation, compliments several workers on the job they’re doing, teases another in mock annoyance about leaving his truck at the mill while he took a few days off (that one turns out to be a cousin). On another floor, wheat flour is milled. Less labor-intensive than buckwheat, the mill processes seven to eight times more wheat flour than buckwheat, including a special blend of different wheats, selected by a master baker, for the in-house bakeries of a respected supermarket chain (nameless because they don’t want to give away their secret). Even so, they might mill more buckwheat here than anywhere else in the country. Sometimes the mill runs three shifts, around the clock.

The two milling operations are kept strictly separate to retain the gluten-free integrity of the buckwheat, which is, strictly speaking, not a grain but the seed of a flowering plant loosely related to both rhubarb and sorrel. Buckwheat is naturally gluten-free and is non-GMO (not genetically modified).

Considered a super food for its high protein content, antioxidants, and heart-healthy components like rutin and magnesium, buckwheat is a complex carbohydrate. People who eat it regularly may experience lower cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar levels.

“Buckwheat punches above its weight,” Kyle comments. Some food labs are experimenting with the creation of buckwheat “milk.” Western bakers incorporate buckwheat flour into cookies and biscuits. Indian bakers sometimes use buckwheat flour in naan, a chewy, yeasted flatbread. In Japan, buckwheat is made into soba noodles, considered one of the healthiest pastas.

There are a few varieties of buckwheat around. Birkett Mills prefers “Koto” developed by Cornell University researcher Thomas Björkman. Tasters preferred its flavor profile, and it has the added advantage of being consistently sized. Hundreds of farmers with production contracts obtain their seed from the Birkett Mills.

“We support more than 10,000 acres of farming,” Kyle says. Some farmers plant buckwheat to get two crops from the same fields. After winter wheat planted the previous autumn is harvested in early summer, their fields are re-planted with buckwheat to prevent erosion and yield a second crop that leaves the soil healthier than before. A few specialize in buckwheat, so the mill enjoys a long harvest season. Large on-site silos store grain waiting to be milled. Buckwheat suppresses weeds, too, so it’s sometimes planted as a cover crop. In a bad production year, the farmer can plow it under to further improve soil health. Its only problem? Deer love it, too.

Kyle grew up around the mill, though he’s almost too young to remember Penn Yan’s annual Buckwheat Harvest Festival, or the largest buckwheat pancake ever made with Birkett Mills-produced flour—2,000 pounds of it, mixed with 2,000 gallons of water. In 1987, a twenty-eight-foot diameter, one-inch-high pancake was made on a specially-constructed two-part griddle, flipped using a construction crane, and served to 7,000 people. Fifteen gallons of maple syrup and sixty-eight pounds of butter were also involved. (Thirty-thousand attended that year over multiple days, so some had to go home and make their own pancakes.)

The festival grew bigger and bigger—and fell victim to its own success. With the mill also experiencing an increased volume of business, it became too big an enterprise for volunteers to maintain, and for the mill to experience a two-week hiatus during harvest, so it was discontinued in 1999. Visitors to Penn Yan still take selfies in front of the griddle, possibly unaware that behind the brick walls the mills are humming, grain is moving, and hundreds of pounds of flour and buckwheat are moving toward their next breakfast—all in the time it takes to snap a photo.

To learn more about buckwheat and the Birkett Mills, and to check out the recipes, visit thebirkettmills.com, or call (315) 536-3311. Find their products nearly everywhere or shop online.