This morning a few of my fellow Daring Bakers and I were comparing notes about the differences between flours in the US and Europe (European flours tend to have a lower gluten content than the US flours because the different types of wheat used). I mentioned that one of my dreams was to get a sample of bread flour from the US, Canada, and a few countries in Europe and Asia and then come back home and have a "bake off" to compare and contrast the differences using the same bread recipe.
After signing off to actually do some work, I got a surprise email from fellow uber-bread baker, Ulrike at Kuchenlatein. She was offering to send me my German sample of bread flour. I was so excited and touched by her kindness, especially since she said that if she got the flour in the mail today I would have it for Christmas. So with visions of bread baking dancing in my head, I emailed back my address and got back to the project I was working; all the while excited that I was one flour closer to my world-wide flour head to head bake-athon.
I shouldn't have baked my loaves in my head too fast because this evening I received an email from Ulrike not telling me my flour was in the mail but rather that she couldn't send me the flour at all because it wouldn't be allowed into the country. No shipping company would allow Ulrike to ship the flour to the US of A because it was a "white powder" and/or the flour might be a threat. HUH?
Apparently the US Government, with all its spare time since everything is going so well here and abroad, has placed bread flour from Germany on the "terrorist watch list".
Um, yea... I feel safer already...
