The Village Baker: Heritage Wheat Flour

Lineage means everything to Don Guerra.

By Kale Roberts
Published on November 6, 2024
article image
courtesy of Barrio Bread
Barrio Bread’s artisan loaves reflect their regional heritage—from the locally grown grains on the inside to the desert-inspired designs on the outside.

Follow Don Guerra through his baking education to discover how he came to bake with heritage wheat flour varieties ‘White Sonora,’ ‘Red Fife,’ ‘Hard Red Spring,’ ‘Khorasan,’ einkorn, and others to create delicious artisan bread.

Ask him what he’s excited to bake at Barrio Bread, his Tucson bakery, and his answer will transport you to the winding streets of Paris, the mountain hollows of New York, and a broad swath of the U.S. desert Southwest. His story will include an artist grandfather, more than a few famous chefs, and a Chinese American family with deep roots growing wheat in southern Arizona. You’ll quickly see that at Barrio Bread — and its companion company, Barrio Grain — a decade-long mission to preserve heritage grain varieties rolls history right into the dough.

When I talked to him, interested to learn how he used his businesses to revive a regional, heritage-grain economy, Guerra was on his way to the weekly Barrio Bread team meeting. I imagined a circle of bakers briefing each other not only on the week’s orders, but also on the temperament of Polish emmer during Arizona’s monsoon season and how to fine-tune the crumb in a pain au levain.

“Our style is artisan,” Guerra explains, leaning into the comparison people make of his bread as works of art. “People think that means ‘crusty bread.’ No! It means it’s crafted by a person, in their style, by their ideas and techniques.” Barrio’s naturally leavened breads display tans, rusts, blonds, and browns. He likens them to a Sonoran sunset — and his description is literal. Signature loaves include a round boule that’s flour-dusted on top to produce the image of a saguaro cactus, the sun above and ears of wheat below. Saguaros also appear on “Desert Durum,” a sourdough made from organic durum flour. “Pan de Kino” features a striking star design mimicking the Arizona state flag and using the region’s heritage wheat, ‘White Sonora.’

These offerings, along with an entrepreneurial spirit that’s unwaveringly friendly to partnerships, have made Guerra a legendary figure in Tucson, where he contributes to the city’s status as a United Nations-designated City of Gastronomy. More than bringing something new to the region, Guerra believes his bread and flour companies are carrying forward a rich Southwestern culinary tradition that began thousands of years ago with various Yuman-speaking Indigenous tribes.

Like any good local legend, Guerra’s origin story seems to morph to fit admirers’ idealized narrative. “People think it all started in my garage,” Guerra says, smiling. And while a garage startup does make an appearance in this story, Don Guerra’s baking history begins even earlier.

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