Buckwheat (blé noir): origins and benefits

In French it is called sarrasin or blé noir, "black wheat", and it is what gives Breton galettes their brown colour and nutty taste. Yet it is not wheat. As crêpe makers in the centre of Mulhouse since 1980, we make our galettes with 100% buckwheat flour: here is what you should know about this seed.

In short: buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) belongs to the Polygonaceae family, like sorrel and rhubarb: it is not a cereal. Native to south-west China, it has been grown in Brittany since the late Middle Ages. Its flour is naturally gluten-free.

A plant, not a cereal

Wheat, barley and rye are grasses. Buckwheat is a member of the Polygonaceae, a cousin of sorrel and rhubarb. It is classed as a "pseudo-cereal", because its small, angular, dark-hulled seeds are used like grains. It is also a honey plant, popular with bees.

Its French names reflect this ambiguity: sarrasin comes from the expression blé sarrasin, after the old name of a people (the Saracens), and blé noir refers to the colour of its seeds. In Breton, it is gwinizh-du, literally "black wheat" (find more words in Crêpe in Breton: a little crêperie glossary).

From the mountains of China to Brittany

Botanical and genetic studies place the origin of cultivated buckwheat in the mountains of south-west China (northern Yunnan, south-western Sichuan, eastern Tibet). It only reached Western Europe at the end of the Middle Ages.

In Brittany, the INAO, the French body for protected food names, dates its cultivation back to the 14th century; historians describe it as spreading rapidly from the 15th century, and as the main crop and staple food of western France from the 17th century. It was then eaten as porridge or as galettes.

Why Brittany?

• It likes poor, acidic soils, common on Breton granite.
• It needs little nitrogen: it does without nitrogen fertiliser.
• Its cycle is short: 100 to 120 days between sowing, in May-June, and harvest, in September-October. It is nicknamed the "hundred-day plant".

Its cultivation declined sharply from the 1960s: by 1980, only a few hundred hectares were left in Brittany. It has been picking up again for about twenty years: Brittany now accounts for about 17% of France's buckwheat fields, but France still imports 45% of the buckwheat it uses.

The PGI Farine de blé noir de Bretagne

Since 25 June 2010, "Farine de blé noir de Bretagne – Gwinizh du Breizh" has been a European protected geographical indication (PGI). Its production area corresponds to historic Brittany (Côtes-d'Armor, Finistère, Ille-et-Vilaine, Loire-Atlantique and Morbihan), plus a few neighbouring cantons, and the grain is milled using traditional methods, with millstones or roller mills. The application was led by the association Blé Noir Tradition Bretagne.

What does buckwheat flour contain?

Here are the average values per 100 g of raw flour, from the Ciqual table of ANSES, the French food safety agency, compared with T45 wheat flour, a white flour often used for crêpes:

With 4.2 g of fibre per 100 g, buckwheat flour is a source of fibre under EU rules (at least 3 g per 100 g), without reaching the "high fibre" threshold (6 g). It also contains far more minerals than white wheat flour, magnesium in particular.

These figures are for raw flour: a galette contains only part of it, and the filling counts too. So buckwheat is no miracle food, simply a worthwhile flour in a varied diet.

Gluten-free, with a few precautions

Buckwheat contains no gluten. But the flour can be contaminated at the mill, and many buckwheat products also contain wheat. If you have coeliac disease, choose a flour labelled "gluten-free" and read the labels.

Another thing to know: buckwheat can cause allergies, sometimes severe ones. ANSES lists it among the "emerging" allergens behind serious reactions, and it is not one of the 14 allergens that must be declared in Europe. If in doubt, always ask.

Buckwheat in world cuisines

• Japan: soba noodles, often mixed with wheat flour; juwari soba is 100% buckwheat.
• Russia and Eastern Europe: kasha, cooked buckwheat groats, and blini, made with wheat or buckwheat.
• Italy: pizzoccheri from Valtellina, pasta made with buckwheat flour and durum wheat semolina, a PGI since 2016.
• Brittany: the galette, of course, the galette-saucisse of Upper Brittany, and the kig ha farz of the Léon area, whose farz of buckwheat flour is cooked in a cloth bag in the broth, with the meat and vegetables.

Buckwheat at the crêperie

At Crampous Mad, all our galettes are 100% buckwheat, and therefore gluten-free, cooked one by one, to order. To taste the buckwheat on its own, start with the butter galette with lightly salted butter (€3.20); for a classic, La Complète (€10.50). As our wheat crêpes are prepared in the same kitchen, let the team know if you have coeliac disease: our advice is in Gluten-free crêperie in Mulhouse. And so you never mix up the two specialities again: Galette or crêpe: what's the difference?

You will find us at 14 rue des Tondeurs, in the centre of Mulhouse, serving all day from Tuesday to Thursday, 11:30 am to 9 pm, and on Friday and Saturday, 11:30 am to 9:30 pm (closed on Sunday and Monday). Discover the menu and book your table on 03 89 45 79 43.